We in the pro-Israel community are certainly accustomed, by now, to the myriad of pro-Palestinian activists and political leftists who engage in rank hypocrisy when it comes to the Jewish state. In fact, the U.S. State Department&#8217;s <a href="https://www.state.gov/defining-anti-semitism/">working definition of anti-Semitism</a> actually includes such hypocrisy as one example of anti-Semitic behavior: &#8220;Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.&#8221;
Alas, someone ought to notify the folks at far-left <a href="https://www.hrw.org">Human Rights Watch</a>.
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-selective-opponent-of-settlers-11579046287?mod=opinion_lead_pos9">Writing today</a> at The Wall Street Journal, international law expert and law professor Eugene Kontorovich — scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem, professor at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, and director of that law school&#8217;s new <a href="https://cilme.gmu.edu">Center for International Law in the Middle East</a> — opines that Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, &#8220;promot[es] boycotts and international prosecution [of Israel] for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement,&#8221; but &#8220;elsewhere &#8230; strongly supports settlements in occupied territories.&#8221;
&#8220;The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war,&#8221; the international law scholar continued. &#8220;Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.&#8221;
Kontorovich then unraveled the precise nature of Whitson&#8217;s hypocrisy. In response to Kontorovich asking Whitson about her work with Armenian National Committee of America, which Kontorovich labels a &#8220;pro-settler charity,&#8221; Whitson responded to the professor: &#8220;My personal support for Armenian diaspora organizations pertains to their charitable and educational work in Armenia and their efforts to advocate for recognition of the Armenian Genocide.&#8221;
But having none of it, Kontorovich then ripped Whitson for trying to have it both ways.
&#8220;This explanation is at odds with [Human Rights Watch&#8217;s] approach to Israel, where the group calls for boycotts of entire companies — including unrelated divisions — because some of their work is in settlements,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;It is also at odds with the record: Ms. Whitson’s fundraising appeals for pro-settlement groups are in no way limited to educational issues. She has celebrated the work of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, which supports new settlement construction to encourage &#8216;young families to set down their roots.&#8217; She specifically <a href="https://agbu.org/news-item/sarah-leah-whitson/?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="15">praised the group for helping Syrian Armenians who have &#8216;resettled in Armenia&#8217;</a>; many or most such refugees have been resettled in the occupied territory.&#8221;
&#8220;If [Human Rights Watch] were serious about its opposition to &#8216;settlers&#8217; and &#8216;occupation,&#8217; it wouldn’t have a supporter of them heading its Middle East division,&#8221; the professor continued.
Reached by The Daily Wire for exclusive comment, Kontorovich elaborated on leftist hypocrisy on the nexus of Israel, international law, and the law of &#8220;occupation.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not news that progressives, in the name of international law, target Israeli obsessively and exclusively for boycotts and delegitimization,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;But they dismiss such observation as &#8216;whataboutism,&#8217; saying their efforts to enforce international law must start somewhere.&#8221;
&#8220;My revelations show that Rashida Tlaib [who is co-sponsoring a bill to normalize relations with Armenian settlements], Sarah Leah Whitson, and others are not simply ignoring situations of occupation around the world — they are promoting them, without having their progressive bona fides revoked. All of their talk about enforcing international law is just a euphemism for creating a Judenrein zone in Judea and Samaria.&#8221;
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">The Trump Administration Is Absolutely Correct To Call Israeli &#8216;Settlements&#8217; Legal.</a>

Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW

HYPOCRISY: Human Rights Watch Opposes Israeli ‘Settlements,’ Supports Settlements Elsewhere

Foreign Policy

Israel

Lawfare

Middle East

Palestinians

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, has the following op-ed today at the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/the-icc-has-some-nerve-to-target-israel/">New York Post</a>.
Among the institutions of the so-called international community, anti-Israel bias is so prevalent and obvious, it’s taken for granted and almost funny. The year-end statistics from the U.N. General Assembly tell nearly the whole story: Of the 25 condemnatory resolutions passed this year, 18 targeted the world’s sole Jewish state.
As I said, almost funny.
But now a more serious threat looms. The United Nations, for all its institutionalized anti-Semitism, remains a toothless body. Not so the Hague-based International Criminal Court, whose judgments can make life miserable for Israeli leaders and soldiers, rendering them vulnerable to arrest abroad.
On Dec. 20, Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian who has served as the ICC’s chief prosecutor since 2012, announced her intention to formally investigate the “situation in Palestine” and alleged Israeli war crimes that “have been or are being committed there.”
Bensouda served as a prosecutor and later justice minister under Gambia’s iron-fisted former dictator Yahya Jammeh. Speaking ­before a Gambian truth-and-reconciliation commission, one dissident accused her of “masterminding” the torture he suffered. (Bensouda has denied knowledge of this torture.)
No wonder she is bent on making a scapegoat of Jews. Specifically, she wants to probe Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip during the last full-scale war against Hamas, in 2014. She also plans to investigate the Jewish state’s response to Hamas’ attempt last year to infiltrate the border fence that separates Israel from the terrorist-run territory.
Bensouda’s prosecution is utterly lawless. As a political matter, the West must push back against this encroachment on the sovereignty of a democratic nation-state.
For starters, the ICC is structurally biased against Israel. As international-law expert Eugene Kontorovich noted when the Palestinian Authority sought formal ICC membership in 2015, the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, included language at the behest of the Arab states specifically designed to ­demonize Israeli “settlement” activity in the West Bank.
That should have given away the ICC game. But even under the ICC’s own terms, Bensouda’s attempted prosecution doesn’t pass muster. It lacks jurisdiction.
Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can go ahead with a prosecution in a country only if the state has delegated jurisdiction to the ­international court. But which state could delegate jurisdiction to the ICC in the case of the Palestinian territories? Certainly not the fictional “State of Palestine,” which even the United Nations doesn’t formally recognize as a state.
Plus, if Israel is a nefarious “occupier” of Palestine, as Palestinian propaganda constantly claims, then it means that the “State of Palestine” isn’t sovereign over its own claimed territory and therefore can’t delegate jurisdiction to the ICC.
An ICC prosecution, moreover, would flout the Oslo Accords, which call for direct negotiations between the parties to reach a final political settlement and under which Israel ­retains full civil and military control over the majority of the West Bank territory
<a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/the-icc-has-some-nerve-to-target-israel/">Read the rest of the piece here.</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">Vox Lies About Israel. AGAIN.</a>

Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal

Hammer At The ‘New York Post’: The ICC Has Some Nerve To Target Israel

Africa

human rights

Judiciary

Lawsuit

In a move that will only further buttress the Trump administration&#8217;s well-deserved claim to being the most pro-Israel American presidency since the 1948 founding of the Jewish state, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-administration-announces-major-policy-shift-toward-israel-no-longer-views-israels-west-bank-settlements-as-violation-of-international-law">announced</a> today that it shall henceforth be the policy of the United States that Israeli &#8220;settlements&#8221; — Jews living in the biblical Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria — do not, by their very existence, violate international law.
&#8220;After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this [a]dministration agrees with President Reagan [that] [t]he establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law,&#8221; Pompeo said. Former top Trump administration Middle East peace negotiator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-trump-administration-right-un-can-never-josh-hammer">Jason Greenblatt</a> further broke down the administration&#8217;s move on <a href="https://images1.ynet.co.il/static/video/vpreview.html?m3u8=https://besttv227-hls-video-ynet.cdn.it.best-tv.com/1119/16c995093f4d46ed55f7bffed4c648f4/master.m3u8&amp;hd1080=0">Israeli television</a>: &#8220;The right [legal] result &#8230; is that Israeli settlements are not per se illegal,&#8221; he explained.
This is a <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1196495392466231296">paradigm-altering</a> and inspired decision for which the Trump administration deserves effusive praise. It is manifestly correct on the black-letter <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AYZBjoeeehg?autoplay=0">international law merits</a>, symbolic in its courageous defiance of the sclerotic groupthink of the ubiquitously anti-Semitic &#8220;international community,&#8221; and stakes out a bold moral starting point in the longstanding fight for Judea and Samaria — which is ground zero in the fight for Western civilization itself.
In many academic, legal, and political circles the world over, it is taken as something of an unassailable given that Israeli &#8220;settlements&#8221; built over the 1967 armistice line are illegal under well-established principles of international law. In reality, nothing could be further from the case. As legal academic Eugene Kontorovich has painstakingly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYZBjoeeehg">pressed for years</a> and as Elliott Hamilton once <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-down-israeli-occupation-myth-elliott-hamilton">argued</a> here at The Daily Wire, it is Israel that actually has the preeminent modern-day legal claim to the biblical Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria — a.k.a the &#8220;West Bank.&#8221;
Israel&#8217;s claim is based on the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations&#8217; 1922 Mandate for Palestine, the San Remo Conference, <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2011/09/22/article-80-and-the-un-recognition-of-a-“palestinian-state”/">U.N. Charter Article 80</a>, the Arabs&#8217; decision to refuse the U.N.&#8217;s November 1947 partition plan in lieu of attempting to commit genocidal jihad against the Jews, and Israel&#8217;s subsequent victories in the defensive wars against invading Arab foes in both 1967 and 1973. The lands that today constitute Judea and Samaria were never, ever in their entire history part of a sovereign state called &#8220;Palestine&#8221;; on the contrary, they were merely <a href="http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/jordanianocuupationjerusalem.asp">illegally occupied</a> by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan between Israel&#8217;s independence in 1948 and Israel&#8217;s miraculous victory in the Six Day War of 1967. Watch Kontorovich&#8217;s fuller explication of Israel&#8217;s clearly superior legal claim to Judea and Samaria:
<iframe title="Disputing Occupation: Israel&#039;s Borders and Settlements in International Law" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AYZBjoeeehg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yet for all its black-letter legal correctness, the Trump administration&#8217;s decision is arguably even more indispensable for its pure symbolism. In reversing Obama presidency-era legal precedent and re-asserting the Reagan presidency-era belief that Israeli &#8220;settlements&#8221; are not legally problematic, the Trump administration has flipped two delectably brazen middle fingers at one of the most deeply held shibboleths of the leftist, <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2016/12/27/destroy-the-united-nations/">Jew-hating</a> &#8220;international community.&#8221; In left-leaning legal and political science academe circles, there is perhaps no more agreed-upon &#8220;truth&#8221; than the notion that Israel is an illegal &#8220;occupier&#8221; that flagrantly tramples all over Palestinian-Arabs&#8217; rights to sovereignty and self-determination. The Trump administration has just taken a jackhammer to that golden calf of ivory tower idolatry — and it has done so less than a week after the European Union&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kalev-european-political-opposition-to-the-jewish-state-should-not-be-taken-lightly">anti-Semitic decision</a> to specifically label certain Israeli products made by Jews living in the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria. Bravo — truly.
Finally, though it would not — and, indeed, does not — admit it, the Trump administration has also just staked out a morally righteous starting point in the final political resolution of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over Judea and Samaria. Secretary Pompeo today was careful today to emphasize that the Trump administration&#8217;s legal proclamation bears no relationship to the ultimate political adjudication of Judea and Samaria&#8217;s status, and we ought to take him at his word that the administration did not intend to put its political or moral thumb on the scale. Indeed, given that the administration&#8217;s unveiling of its <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fleisher-clash-american-liberal-jewry-and-israeli-yishai-fleisher">&#8220;Deal of the Century&#8221;</a> peace plan is still awaiting Israel durably securing a new parliamentary coalition, perhaps it would even be politically imprudent for the administration to do so.
But, at least indirectly, it seems to have done so nonetheless. By refusing to pay lip service to demonstrably erroneous legal fictions pertaining to Israel&#8217;s allegedly illegal &#8220;occupation&#8221; in Judea and Samaria, the Trump administration has — at least inadvertently — emboldened Israel&#8217;s political negotiating position. How could Israel not feel empowered to more adamantly push its political position vis-à-vis Judea and Samaria if it knows that the world&#8217;s greatest superpower and its <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-pro-israel-case-against-u-s-military-aid-to-israel">chief foreign aid</a> provider does not, in fact, view its purportedly most infamous illegality as not actually being illegal? Israel should feel more secure in its pushing for increased sovereignty over the ground zero battleground between liberalized Western civilization and barbaric jihad that is Judea and Samaria.
The Trump administration has, once again, shown its unmistakable and remarkable commitment to the irreplaceable American ally that is Israel. Thank you, President Trump.

Ariel, Israel

HAMMER: The Trump Administration Is Absolutely Correct To Call Israeli ‘Settlements’ Legal

Mike Pompeo

State Department

Trump Administration

In a decision that likely shocked even the White House, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling and temporarily approved a potential Trump administration policy that would see asylum seekers who arrive at the United States-Mexico border forced to remain in Mexico, rather than the U.S., while their claims are being processed.
A San Francisco judge denied the Trump administration the ability to institute the policy while the full policy is under litigation. On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit, which had issued a stay on the policy back in April, continuing the San Francisco court&#8217;s response, lifted the stay, determining that the Trump administration could go forward with the policy while the full case matures, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/appeals-court-allows-trump-administration-to-send-back-asylum-seekers-to-mexico-to-wait-out-court-process">Fox News reports</a>.
That means that the &#8220;case must still be considered on its merits at a lower court in San Francisco,&#8221; but that the Trump administration is not prohibited from instituting the policy while they wait.
Opponents of the &#8220;remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the recently disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center, contend that the policy should be temporarily halted because asylum seekers will suffer undue harm if they are not allowed to remain in the United States for the four to six months it now takes to process an asylum claim.
&#8220;The lawsuit on behalf of 11 asylum seekers from Central America and legal advocacy groups says the Trump administration is violating U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate the dangers that migrants face in Mexico,&#8221; according to Fox News.
The ACLU and SPLC also claim that the &#8220;return to Mexico&#8221; policy is a deterrent to migrants seeking asylum in violation of their legal right to apply for safe refuge in the United States, because migrants seeking asylum want immediate assistance.
The Trump administration, through the Department of Homeland Security, formulated the policy in response to a sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers presenting themselves at official border crossings in the final quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019. Knowing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection are overwhelmed, most asylum seekers now assume &#8212; or are told &#8212; that they will be given a court date for their asylum hearing and then released into the United States pending that hearing, a process known as &#8220;catch and release.&#8221;
The Trump administration discontinued the &#8220;catch and release&#8221; program, but then immediately ran into difficulty. Asylum seekers with minor children cannot be kept in CBP custody more than three weeks, and separating families (as a way around that policy), resulted in a nationwide backlash. CBP now tries to hold asylum seekers as long as possible, but border patrol facilities are made for several thousand detainees, not several hundred thousand.
The &#8220;remain in Mexico&#8221; policy isn&#8217;t popular with Mexican authorities, who say their border towns are now also overrun with asylum seekers and members of &#8220;migrant caravans&#8221; that have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many of those migrants also rebuff Mexican offers of asylum, temporary work permits, or a ride back to their home country, clearly preferring to declare asylum in the United States.
The full &#8220;remain in Mexico&#8221; case is expected to begin litigation this summer.

SHOCK: Ninth Circuit Approves Trump Admin’s ‘Wait In Mexico’ Asylum Policy

Illegal Immigration

Immigrants

Immigration

Southern Border

The two Nigerian-American brothers who helped &#8220;Empire&#8221; actor Jussie Smollett carry out his alleged &#8220;hate hoax&#8221; attack have sued Smollett&#8217;s Hollywood-based attorneys in federal court alleging defamation.
<a href="https://www.cwbchicago.com/2019/04/nigerian-brothers-sue-smollett.html">CWB Chicago reports</a> that &#8220;[t]he complaint filed this morning in Chicago&#8217;s federal courthouse seeks more than $75,000 each for Olabinjo &#8216;Ola&#8217; Osundairo and Abimbola &#8216;Bola&#8217; Osundairo from attorneys Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian as well as the Geragos &amp; Geragos Law Firm.&#8221;
The lawsuit not only accuses Smollett&#8217;s attorneys of making defamatory claims that they believe went above and beyond merely advocating for their client in the public square, but outlines, in a signed and sworn document, how they helped Smollett carry out the alleged &#8220;hate hoax,&#8221; which, they say, was entirely orchestrated by Smollett himself.
The two brothers allege that Smollett paid them &#8220;a sum of money to stage the attack to benefit himself&#8221; and then &#8220;directed every aspect of the attack, including the location and the noose.&#8221;
The pair of brothers, who work as amateur personal trainers and nutritionists in Chicago, and took bit parts in local television shows, including &#8220;Empire,&#8221; where they first connected with Smollett, contend they were cowed into the deal: &#8220;Mr. Smollett used his clout as a wealthy actor to influence Plaintiffs, who were in a subordinate relationship to him and were aspiring to &#8216;make it&#8217; in Hollywood.&#8221;
&#8220;Mr. Smollett&#8217;s motivation was simple. He wanted his employer and the public to notice and appreciate him as a successful black, openly gay actor. So, Mr. Smollett directed every aspect of the attack, including the location and the noose,&#8221; the lawsuit says.
After weeks of a Chicago Police Department investigation into what Smollett said was racist and homophobic attack, that took place outside of his apartment building in the tony downtown Chicago neighborhood of Streeterville, detectives determined that Smollett himself was responsible for orchestrating the attack. The actor was arrested and charged with 17 criminal counts, most relating to filing a false police report with CPD.
In a controversial move, the Cook County State&#8217;s Attorney&#8217;s office dropped the charges against Smollett in exchange for $10,000 and 16 hours of community service, but no admission of guilt on Smollett&#8217;s part. The brothers say that Smollett took that deal as evidence of his innocence, but that Smollett&#8217;s lawyers &#8220;continued to maintain in media appearances that the brothers were responsible for the attack, with [Smollett attorney Tina] Glandian going so far to suggest the two men may have been wearing &#8216;whiteface&#8217; to disguise their identities during the attack.&#8221;
In a press conference held Tuesday, the brothers&#8217; attorney, Gloria Schmidt, said the continued attention has hurt the brothers&#8217; respective businesses, and caused them untold emotional pain.
&#8220;Attorneys Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian, through their continued false statements and hateful rhetoric, have only deepened the damage that was cause by the very first out of 16 counts of lies that were told to the police that started this whole situation,&#8221; Glandian said. &#8220;They were asked to do something by a friend whom they trusted and at the end of the day that trust was betrayed.&#8221;
In their own statement, the two brothers justified their lawsuit: &#8220;We have sat back and watched lie after lie being fabricated about us in the media only so one big lie can continue to have light. These lies are destroying our character and reputation and personal life&#8230;Those who know us personally know we don&#8217;t have hate for anyone. That is not who we are. We try to spread love and positivity. We will no longer sit back and allow these lies to continue.&#8221;
The lawsuit also lists a handful of other, secondary statements the Osundairo brothers say contributed to their problems. The two allege that Smollett attorney Mark Geragos accused the pair of criminally battering Smollett, that Glandin accused the pair of engaging in an illegal Nigerian drug trafficking scam, and that Glandian suggested one of the brothers had been in a homosexual relationship with Smollett. That brother says he is straight and in a relationship with a woman.
&#8220;The Plaintiffs feel unsafe and alienated in their local Chicago community. This is because Mr. Geragos, a very famous attorney, falsely &amp; publicly stated they have committed a heinous, racially, and homophobically motivated hate crime, that they lied under oath, and that lied to the Chicago Police Department.&#8221;
The two brothers have asked for a jury trial. No date has yet been set.

Brothers Who Helped Carry Out Alleged ‘Hate Hoax’ SUE Jussie Smollett’s Attorneys For Defamation

Chicago

Jussie Smollett

Racism

President Donald Trump and the Trump Corporation filed suit Monday against House Democrats, led by House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), to prevent the committee from issuing subpoenas seeking the president&#8217;s financial records, both from his companies and from an accounting firm hired to handle Trump finances.
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/22/trump-sues-to-block-subpoena-from-house-democrats-seeking-information-on-his-finances.html">NBC News reports</a> the filings accuse Democrats of having &#8220;declared all-out political war&#8221; on the president, and that Democrats&#8217; subpoenas are less a legal device and more a &#8220;weapon of choice&#8221; for members of the House Oversight Committee and the House Ethics Committee.
Democrats pledged, immediately upon taking over the House in January, that they would begin a number of investigations into the president, including probes into the Trump campaign, whether Trump&#8217;s continued &#8212; yet hands off &#8212; ownership of the Trump Corporation violated government financial regulations, and whether Trump is profiting off his position in violation of the Constitution&#8217;s Emoluments Clause.
After the Mueller report was released last week, showing no signs of collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials looking to sway the results of the 2016 presidential election, Democrats have also pledged to investigate the investigators. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and others have said they will call Special Counsel Robert Mueller and members of his team to testify in front of various House committees to explain how they found no evidence of collusion despite a nearly two year-long investigation.
Last week, Cummings issued several subpoenas to various arms of the Trump organization, including a company called Mazars, which NBC News describes as &#8220;an accounting firm that Trump had used to prepare several years of financial statements.&#8221;
&#8220;The subpoena requested a slew of financial documents and related materials from Trump, his trust, the Trump Organization, the Trump Corporation, Trump&#8217;s holdings company, the Trump Foundation and the Trump International Hotel in Washington,&#8221; the outlet says.
Mazars informed Cummings that they would not give over the documents willingly, and that a subpoena would probably be required to obtain all the information Cummings and his committee want.
Democrats say the information is vitally necessary to piecing together how Trump plans to make money from his various enterprises while he&#8217;s in office, and in a statement, Cummings claimed that their subpoenas are legitimate and that the White House is merely &#8220;stonewalling on all fronts,&#8221; having &#8220;refused to produce a single document or witness to the Oversight Committee during this entire year.&#8221;
Trump and his lawyers see it differently, calling the flurry of subpoenas &#8220;presidential harassment&#8221; and a useless effort to &#8220;obtain years&#8217; worth of confidential information from their accountants.&#8221; The Democrats plan, Trump&#8217;s lawyers added, &#8220;lacks any legitimate legislative purpose, is an abuse of power, and is just another example of overreach by the president&#8217;s political opponents.&#8221;
Axios also reports that Trump&#8217;s lawyers referenced the Mueller report and the Mueller investigation specifically, claiming that House Democrats are looking to assume &#8220;the powers of the Department of Justice, investigating (dubious and partisan) allegations of illegal conduct by private individuals outside of government.&#8221;
This is likely the first of dozens of legal battles between Trump, his companies, and House Democrats. So far, the Dems have <a href="https://www.axios.com/2018-midterm-elections-house-democrats-investigations-6bcfabb1-f1b2-49ce-8014-3e9b0c30db6c.html">at least 85 separate investigation targets</a> listed on their agenda, and that doesn&#8217;t count their adjacent investigations into various Trump administration endeavors or &#8220;potential Trump investigations&#8221; that might result from future appointments and policy decisions.

President Trump SUES House Democrats To Halt Demands For His Financial Records

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Elijah Cummings

White House

Last week, The Lawfare Project, a pro-Israel legal group about whom The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44739/about-time-pro-israel-lawyers-question-josh-hammer">previously reported</a> and which <a href="https://www.thelawfareproject.org/who-we-are">describes itself</a> as &#8220;a global network of legal professionals that contribute our skills, time and expertise to defending the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and pro-Israel community, and fighting discrimination wherever we see it,&#8221; published a <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/um6pn49gvpx0zb8/LP_BDS_Memo_April_2019.pdf?dl=0">full-length memorandum</a> entitled, &#8220;Laws in Various Domestic and International Jurisdictions Deplore and Attach Liability for Discriminatory Commercial Conduct Related to the Boycott of, or Divestment From, the State of Israel.&#8221;
The memorandum was produced in response to a campaign led primarily by Amnesty International UK&#8217;s pernicious and inherently anti-Semitic &#8220;boycott, divestment, and sanctions&#8221; (BDS) campaign against Israel, about which The Daily Wire has also reported. In late January, The Daily Wire&#8217;s Hank Berrien <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42813/report-amnesty-international-conducting-open-hank-berrien">reported</a> the following:
<blockquote>
On Wednesday, Amnesty International, which supports the BDS movement against Israel, will publish an anti-Semitic report that is intended to cripple tourism to Israel, according to NGO Monitor, which states that the Amnesty International report alleges, &#8220;the Israeli government has political and ideological reasons for developing a tourism industry in occupied East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank &#8230; Israel has constructed many of its settlements close to archaeological sites &#8230; [as] part of an active campaign to normalize and legitimize Israel&#8217;s increasing control of the [West Bank].&#8221;
Just as the United Nations passed a resolution in the twilight of Barack Obama&#8217;s presidency that rejected Jewish claims to the holiest places in Judaism, including the Temple Mount and Jerusalem, the Amnesty International report, titled, &#8220;The Tourism Industry and Israeli Settlements,&#8221; apparently attempts to paint tourism to Israel as connected to the expansion of Jewish settlements, in the process making it seem as if Jewish holy sites are not of tremendous historical significance for visitors.
</blockquote>
The Lawfare Project sent its memorandum to 350 companies and 100 law firms and, according to its press release, &#8220;outlines legal ramifications and anti-Semitic underpinnings of the BDS movement.&#8221;
Here is more from the press release:
<blockquote>
The memorandum follows a campaign led by certain offices of Amnesty International, among other entities, to pressure major companies and law firms into engaging in targeted boycotts of individuals and enterprises residing or operating in the Jewish communities located in the disputed territories. 
A March 13 letter from Director of Amnesty International UK Kate Allen warned companies of the &#8220;significant risk&#8221; of conducting commerce with &#8220;Israeli businesses in Occupied Palestinian Territories.&#8221; The letter failed to disclose both the legal risks associated with participating in boycotts of Israel and the anti-Semitic nature of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Boycotts of Israel fit the U.S. State Department&#8217;s definition of anti-Semitism through &#8220;applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.&#8221;
Amnesty International UK&#8217;s letter aligns with the position of the Amnesty International organization as a whole, as Amnesty&#8217;s central website hosts a petition which asks users to sign their name in order to take actions in support of BDS. 
After learning about Amnesty International UK&#8217;s anti-Israel boycott campaign, The Lawfare Project immediately began updating the memorandum, first produced in 2017, which provides executives with the full legal context and anti-Semitic underpinnings of the boycott movement in order to inform their decisions on doing business with Israel. Corporate leaders have already expressed gratitude for how the memorandum has protected them from complicity in illegal and immoral boycotts. 
</blockquote>
The press release concludes by quoting Lawfare Project Executive Director Brooke Goldstein: &#8220;BDS has a well-documented history of fostering anti-Semitism and illegal discrimination on the basis of national origin. It has no place in commerce. We will continue to make companies aware of the legal and moral ramifications of engaging in boycott activity.&#8221;
The Lawfare Project&#8217;s memorandum likely serves as the definitive legal document, published to-date, that apprises business leaders of the destructive nature of BDS.

Prominent Pro-Israel Group Sends Key Memorandum To Firms Outlining Anti-Semitic Nature Of BDS

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) lost his battle against a medical device manufacturer this week, and failed to recover from injuries he says he sustained when an exercise band snapped back at him during a workout.
<a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/harry-reid-finishes-testimony-in-trial-over-exercise-band-injuries-1629248/">The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports</a> that it took jurors only an hour to decide that Reid didn&#8217;t deserve the $50,000 he was demanding from Ohio-based Hygenic Intangible Property Holding Co., The Hygenic Corp. and Performance Health LLC, who make the &#8220;TheraBand,&#8221; a large, physical therapy rubber band used, in Reid&#8217;s case, to strengthen arm muscles.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45267/harry-reid-suing-makers-theraband-over-his-eye-emily-zanotti">The Daily Wire reported</a> on the case last month. Reid was claiming that he was using the band as directed, looped around a doorknob in his bathroom, when the band slipped from his grasp and he fell on a marble floor, sustaining &#8220;a concussion, broken orbital bones, severe disfigurement to his face, bruising and lacerations on his face, hand injuries, scarring and broken ribs.&#8221;
The accident left him nearly blind in his right eye, and, according to Reid, was the impetus behind his retirement from the Senate at age 75.
But Reid&#8217;s case wasn&#8217;t even out of opening statements before things started to turn sour for the career Democrat. Opposing counsel repeatedly reiterated that Reid had been instructed by congressional physical trainers to &#8220;improve his foot stance, balance and technique while using the resistance bands at his doctors&#8217; recommendation,&#8221; but hadn&#8217;t followed orders, and that Reid had thrown out the band that had snapped, so he couldn&#8217;t even be sure it was TheraBand brand.
But the real trouble for Reid seemed to be, as the defendant&#8217;s attorney put it, that he couldn&#8217;t keep his stories straight, even under oath: &#8220;The one thing we do know,&#8221; she said, &#8220;is he struggles with telling the truth.&#8221;
There were two problems with Reid&#8217;s story, it seems. One, that he blamed the injuries he sustained from the broken band for ending his career in the Senate, and two, that he told two different stories about how he was using the band when it snapped.
<a href="https://www.apnews.com/7bb982641b354dbea3899629d7ded61f">The Associated Press reports</a> that the defendant&#8217;s attorney hammered home the part about the Senate.
&#8220;Reid testified last week his injuries were &#8216;the main factor&#8217; why he decided not to seek a sixth Senate term in 2016. [The defense attorney], however, showed the jury a 2015 video news release in which Reid said his decision not to run had &#8216;absolutely nothing to do with my injury,'&#8221; the outlet reported.
Reid was 75 years old when he retired from the Senate in 2015, and, at the time, there was no guarantee that he would emerge victorious from another campaign. Democrats were seeking fresh blood in the Senate and, at the time, it was largely considered a safe seat for the Democratic Party, so Reid retired to his home in Searchlight, Nevada. Since then, he&#8217;s been mostly absent from politics, except for the occasional comment on the current state of Democratic leadership.
Reid also, according to the AP, couldn&#8217;t quite remember whether he&#8217;d hooked the band to a metal hook in his bathroom, or through the handle of his shower door, and testified to both.
&#8220;He noted that Reid at first said the band broke, not that it slipped his grasp, and that it had been attached to a metal hook in the wall of the bathroom in his suburban Las Vegas home,&#8221; the AP said. &#8220;On the witness stand, Reid testified he looped a band through a shower door handle, not a hook, and that he spun around and fell face-first against hard-edged bathroom cabinets.&#8221;
Reid blamed the confusion on his &#8220;concussion state,&#8221; <a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/harry-reid-finishes-testimony-in-trial-over-exercise-band-injuries-1629248/">according to the Review-Journal</a>.

Harry Reid Loses Battle Against TheraBand, Accused Of Struggling To Tell The Truth

Harry Reid

Nevada

Former Senator Harry Reid is in a Nevada court this week, suing the makers of TheraBand, a stretchy physical therapy resistance band that he says robbed him of sight in his right eye.
<a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/jurors-hear-opening-statements-in-harry-reids-exercise-injury-trial-video-1626580/">The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports</a> that Reid is suing Ohio-based Hygenic Intangible Property Holding Co., The Hygenic Corp. and Performance Health LLC, for $50,000, claiming that their faulty product caused him to suffer &#8220;a concussion, broken orbital bones, severe disfigurement to his face, bruising and lacerations on his face, hand injuries, scarring and broken ribs.&#8221;
Reid claims that he was doing physical therapy exercises with the TheraBand in his bathroom on New Years Day 2015 when the band slipped from his grasp, and he fell, sustaining major injuries. Two months later, because he was still contending with blindness in his right eye, he says he was forced to retire from his job in the Senate (at age 75).
Reid, now 79 and suffering from pancreatic cancer, has appeared in court, but it&#8217;s not clear whether he will testify; so far, only a few days into the trial, things don&#8217;t seem to be going Reid&#8217;s way.
According to the Associated Press, the lawyer for Hygenic &#8216;told a civil trial jury that congressional exercise advisers tried for months to teach Reid to improve his foot stance, balance and technique while using the resistance bands at his doctors&#8217; recommendation,&#8221; and that Reid was using the band &#8220;improperly&#8221; when he tied it to his shower door.
Reid claimed at the time that the band broke, which is what caused him to fall forward and smash his face on a hard surface, but his lawyers, in their opening statement, agreed with the defendant that Reid was holding the band in his hand when he lost his grip.
&#8220;The evidence will show that he was using a band &#8230; it slipped from the hand, he spun to the right &#8230; and landed right on the eye,&#8221; his attorney said, adding that Reid&#8217;s bathroom was almost entirely clad in marble and granite &#8212; two very unforgiving surfaces.
Worse still, it seems Reid threw the band out after the incident, meaning that no one involved in the lawsuit has the exact item Reid was using, and it&#8217;s not immediately clear that the product was an actual TheraBand manufactured or sold by Hygenic.
Harry Reid has been mostly absent from politics since leaving Congress in 2015, though he has popped in from time to time to comment on President Donald Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s now-concluded investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials to impact the 2016 elections.
Just a few days ago, Reid took credit for kicking off concerns about Russian election interference, claiming that he wrote a letter to the FBI in August 2016 trying to force then-FBI director James Comey to take note of Russian interference in American elections.
&#8220;I wrote a letter in August [2016] to the Director of the FBI Comey and said Russia is messing with our elections and you need to do something about that. And by October he had done nothing,&#8221; Reid said, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/harry-reid-rips-james-comey-for-doing-nothing-about-russian-election-meddling">according to the Washington Examiner</a>. &#8220;We now know he should have done something.&#8221;
Reid claims Comey didn&#8217;t get involved because everyone in Washington, D.C. was under the assumption that Hillary Clinton would sail to an easy victory.

Harry Reid Is Suing The Makers Of TheraBand Over His Eye Injury And It’s Not Going Very Well

Hillary Clinton

On Friday, an international group of pro-Israel lawyers submitted formal evidence that challenges the <a href="http://jcpa.org/is-the-international-criminal-court-becoming-a-palestinian-propaganda-engine/">infamously anti-Israel</a> International Criminal Court&#8217;s (ICC) jurisdiction over Israeli &#8220;settlements&#8221; in the historical Jewish homeland of Judea and Samara &#8212; otherwise frequently referred to as the &#8220;West Bank.&#8221; Despite much of the &#8220;international community&#8221; settling on an alternative viewpoint, the most straightforward application of longstanding principles of international law is that Israel&#8217;s presence in Judea and Samaria is entirely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYZBjoeeehg">lawful</a>.
Here is an excerpt of the press release from the pro-Israel group <a href="https://www.thelawfareproject.org">The Lawfare Project</a>:
<blockquote>
Top lawyers specializing in cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC) have filed a submission questioning the admissibility of cases regarding Israeli settlements. Steven Kay QC and Joshua Kern of 9 Bedford Row chambers in London made the submission with support from The Lawfare Project and UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). An article regarding the submission is available here.
The submission emphasizes that the Israeli Supreme Court (sitting as the High Court of Justice) plays an active role ruling on matters relating to Israeli settlements. Because Israel&#8217;s own courts already rule on the issue and have issued several landmark rulings on settlements in the past, such cases are not admissible before the ICC. That is because &#8212; according to the core principle of &#8220;complementarity&#8221; under the Rome Statute, which governs the ICC &#8212; the ICC is not supposed to rule on issues where there are genuine proceedings before national courts. &#8230;
</blockquote>
According to the press release, Stephen Kay QC of 9 Bedford Row, who filed the submission, said:
<blockquote>
&#8220;Israel has a functioning, independent, institutional framework which permits investigation of conduct that would be covered by potential settlements cases at the ICC. Under the core ICC principle of complementarity, prosecutors should accept the validity of decisions taken by Israel&#8217;s national courts. If they are not prepared to do that, then the burden of proof will be on them to say why.&#8221;
</blockquote>
And Brooke Goldstein, Executive Director of The Lawfare Project, which independently supported the submission, said:
<blockquote>
&#8220;An ICC case on &#8216;settlements&#8217; would totally ignore the fact that Israel&#8217;s courts have frequently ruled and continue to rule on these issues. It would be yet another attempt at applying double standards to Israel. Double standards inspire a lack of trust in the international legal system and undermine the sanctity of international law. The Lawfare Project is proud to support this fresh legal approach to challenging lawfare attempts at circumventing the rule of law.&#8221;
</blockquote>
As Kay concluded in a complementary <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/2019/03/14/complementarity-and-a-potential-settlements-case-a-response-to-the-otps-report-on-its-preliminary-examination-of-the-situation-in-palestine/">article</a> released yesterday: &#8220;Where there is a dispute which engages individual petitioners&#8217; rights under international humanitarian, human rights, and national administrative law, affected communities have a right of civil and public law redress in Israel. These are principally public law and land law related disputes and the civil courts are the appropriate forum to investigate and determine them prior to a criminal investigation.&#8221;
The United States is not a party to the previously referenced Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 2002. Over 120 countries presently are members of the ICC. Conservatives have long been critical of the ICC, in accordance with a general belief that a delegation of jurisdiction over criminal matters to an unaccountable transnational body is at fundamental loggerheads with rudimentary principles of republican self-governance &#8212; to say nothing of the Supremacy Clause of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Art. VI</a> of the U.S. Constitution itself.

About Time: Pro-Israel Lawyers Question Jurisdiction Of International Criminal Court

Attorneys for Covington Catholic High School junior Nick Sandmann, who was at the center of a social media firestorm last month, say they will begin filing defamation lawsuits against celebrities, social media figures, and news organizations, now that Sandmann has been &#8220;cleared of wrongdoing&#8221; in a confrontation between students and an elderly Native American protester by the Catholic Diocese of Covington.
The Diocese released their independent investigation into the confrontation yesterday, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/02/17/catholic-covington-students/2868549002/">according to the Detroit Free Press</a>, several weeks after a video went viral showing Sandmann coming face to face with Nathan Phillips as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial waiting for a bus.
Social media users initially claimed that Sandmann, who was wearing a newly-purchased &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; hat, was &#8220;intimidating&#8221; Phillips, and that Covington Catholic students had mocked the protesters with racist slogans and gestures. Phillips also claimed that the students surrounded him, harassed him, and blocked his exit.
More complete video of the incident eventually emerged, showing that Phillips, not the students, instigated the confrontation, that he was never blocked from leaving, and that the students had themselves been the subject of racially-charged harassment from a different group of protesters shortly before Phillips and others appeared on the scene.
The Diocese hired Cincinnati, Ohio law firm Dressman Benzinger Lavell to conduct the investigation, which found no wrongdoing on the part of Sandmann or the other students. &#8220;Investigators interviewed 43 students and 13 chaperones, while examining 50 hours of internet activity including videos and news media reports. Nick supplied his publicized written statement, which investigators determined was accurate,&#8221; <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/17/nick-sandmanns-lawyer-file-defamation-suits-week/">according to The Washington Times</a>.
&#8220;Our inquiry, conducted by a third party firm that has no connection with Covington Catholic High School or the Diocese of Covington, has demonstrated that our students did not instigate the incident that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial,&#8221; Bishop Roger Joseph Foys of the Covington Diocese said in a statement posted to the Diocese website. &#8220;Our students were placed in a situation that was at once bizarre and even threatening. Their reaction to the situation was, given the circumstances, expected and one might even say laudatory.&#8221;
Attorney L. Lin Wood, who is representing Sandmann, announced that the student&#8217;s legal team would begin filing defamation lawsuits against roughly fifty potential defendants this week. Wood&#8217;s firm previously sent &#8220;cease and desist&#8221; letters to dozens of celebrities, social media personalities, and news organizations who &#8220;reported&#8221; on the Covington Catholic incident. Those same letters demanded each potential defendant preserve any tweets or comments they had made on the confrontation, particularly those concerning Sandman.
&#8220;Nick Sandmann is 16 years old &amp; has 2½+ years to identify accusers &amp; sue them,&#8221; Wood said on Twitter, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/17/nick-sandmanns-lawyer-file-defamation-suits-week/">per The Washington Times</a>. &#8220;No member of mainstream &amp; social media mob who attacked him should take comfort from not being sued in initial round of lawsuits which will commence next week. Time is Nick&#8217;s friend, not his enemy.&#8221;
Likely recipients include, &#8220;CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Jim Carrey, Alyssa Milano, Bill Maher, and even Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren,&#8221; according to entertainment news site, <a href="https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/02/05/lawyers-representing-covington-catholic-high-school-student-nick-sandmann-send-letters-to-over-50-personalities-and-organizations-lawsuits-a-possibility/">Bounding into Comics</a>.

Covington Student Now Prepared To File Defamation Lawsuits After Being Cleared By Independent Investigation

Covington Catholic High School

Friday morning, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43518/10-am-today-trump-declare-border-emergency-can-joseph-curl">declared a national emergency</a> in order to unilaterally fund more miles of border fencing than this week&#8217;s omnibus compromise &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43495/hammer-amnesty-omnibus-deal-exact-boondoggle-trump-josh-hammer">deal</a>&#8221; otherwise permits. The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43518/10-am-today-trump-declare-border-emergency-can-joseph-curl">reported</a>:
<blockquote>
President Trump on Friday announced that he is declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, and he will redirect up to $8 billion in federal money to build a border barrier to keep foreigners from illegally entering the country.
While Democrats are expected to fight the move &#8212; and likely will seek to halt the plan via court or congressional action &#8212; Trump declared that, as president, he has unilateral authority to redirect federal funds in order to stem a crisis.
The National Emergencies Act of 1976 says the president &#8220;has available certain powers that may be exercised in the event that the nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances (other than natural disasters, war, or near-war situations),&#8221; the Congressional Research Service says.
</blockquote>
Following Trump&#8217;s Rose Garden announcement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wasted little time in announcing its plan to sue the Trump Administration. The ACLU <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-challenge-national-emergency-declaration">press release</a> reads, in relevant part:
<blockquote>
The ACLU will argue that President Trump&#8217;s use of emergency powers to evade Congressional funding restrictions is unprecedented and that 10 U.S.C. § 2808, the emergency power that Trump has invoked, cannot be used to build a border wall. Congress restricted the use of that power to military construction projects, like overseas military airfields in wartime, that &#8220;are necessary to support&#8221; the emergency use of armed forces.
</blockquote>
Many conservative legal scholars disagree with the ACLU&#8217;s analysis. In particular, John Eastman of the Claremont Institute and John Yoo of Berkeley Law and the American Enterprise Institute, each of whom formerly clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas, have <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/09/trump-can-build-the-wall-and-should/">both</a> <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-yoo-national-emergency-border-wall-20190111-story.html">expressed</a> their <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-border-wall-emergency-declaration-legal-likely-upheld/">belief</a> that President Trump&#8217;s national emergency is being declared pursuant to Congress&#8217; delegated statutory authority. There is also the separate threshold question as to whether the ACLU would even have proper standing to sue, under Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
The Washington Examiner <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/aclu-will-sue-to-block-trumps-illegal-power-grab-on-border-security">reports</a> that Trump&#8217;s national emergency declaration will allow him to potentially fund 234 more miles of border fencing. The declaration, per the Examiner, opens up an additional $6.6 billion in funding that may be used for the wall &#8212; far more than the $1.375 billion that the omnibus compromise &#8220;deal&#8221; provided.
The ACLU has recently come under fire for its opposition to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1">S. 1</a>, the pro-Israel piece of legislation that recently passed the U.S. Senate by a 77-23 margin. The bill allows for state and local governmental entities to refuse to contract with entities whose commercial conduct is intertwined with the anti-Semitic &#8220;boycott, divest, and sanctions&#8221; movement against Israel. Yesterday, Jonathan Tobin had the following to say about the ACLU, at <a href="https://www.jns.org/opinion/whatever-happened-to-the-aclu/">Jewish News Syndicate</a>:
<blockquote>
The ACLU claims this is a defense of the First Amendment. The Constitution protects the right of those who advocate for Israel&#8217;s destructions or for boycotts of it to express their opinions. But there is no constitutional right to engage in commercial conduct that discriminates against a class of persons or those associated with the only Jewish state on the planet. To the contrary, the states and the federal government are on firm constitutional ground to deem such discrimination illegal, as is the case when it comes to similar actions directed at African-Americans or other ethnic or religious groups. &#8230;
That the ACLU would weigh in on behalf of BDS is deeply troubling. BDS is a movement steeped in anti-Semitism, as its supporters&#8217; statements and actions have repeatedly proved. The struggle against it has nothing to do with free speech &#8212; and everything to do with anti-Semitism &#8212; since it is a concept based on the notion that Israel, alone of all countries in the world, deserves to be eliminated.
</blockquote>

ACLU Announces That It Will Challenge Trump’s National Emergency Declaration

ACLU

European Union leaders appear to believe they&#8217;re about to spell the end of the &#8220;meme&#8221; by passing a series of copyright protections for intellectual property holders known as the Copyright Directive.
The new laws aim to curb any use of copyrighted material, even if that material is made into a derivative work, or an internet meme &#8212; and the new protections would allow companies like Google and Facebook, who operate social media sites and can control content, to pull &#8220;questionable&#8221; material that could be subject to a copyright claim.
<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/european-copyright-law-will-result-in-meme-ban-campaigners-warn/ar-AAyoHr5?li=AA59G2">That means, critics say</a>, that the European Union will force Google and Facebook to end the meme as we know it. And any speech that anyone in the European Union finds objectionable (or might find objectionable).
That could lead to a disastrous crackdown on online speech in a region where there are no First Amendment-type protections and where censorship is a burgeoning pastime for governments and social justice warriors alike.
&#8220;Article 13 appears to provoke such legal uncertainty that online services will have no other option than to monitor, filter and block EU citizens&#8217; communications if they are to have any chance of staying in business,&#8221; digital free speech advocates, Electronic Freedom Foundation said in a statement.
The European lawmakers insist that they&#8217;ll never use their newfound internet censorship power for evil.
&#8220;The proposals to modernize EU copyright provisions will not harm freedom of expression on the internet,&#8221; a European Union spokesman told MSN.
Even if the EU does succeed in passing strict new copyright protection laws, it may not be able to enforce them against the online purveyors of grumpy cats and angry Sean Bean quotes, or rid the internet of copyrighted material altogether (though it may make it easier for copyright holders to come after people who make and post memes for compensation).
If Spain, which tried to ban memes back in 2016, is any indication, however, what it will do is lead to a deluge of hilarious anti-EU memes <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3923656/Spain-proposes-BAN-memes-government-immediately-mocked-memes.html">that haunt legislators across the web</a>.

Europe May Be Trying To Put An End To Memes

Europe

European Union

It is always interesting when the Left starts making conservative arguments.
I will give a couple of examples from the past year. Following Donald Trump&#8217;s election, the same voices that championed Barack Obama&#8217;s encroachment of executive power started challenging the idea that Trump ought to possess those same powers. When the Republican Party moved forward in its failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Democrats started arguing that the states should take the reins on health care policy in the absence of federal government oversight.
Conservatives and libertarians have made the affirmative case for the Constitution&#8217;s strict guidelines on the separation of powers and federalism since the beginning. While we made these points during the Obama administration, we did not stop making those arguments once President Trump was inaugurated last January. Most of us have challenged any Trumpian attempts to expand government power in places where it does not belong.
Conservatives are also known to have a substantial bone to pick with the administrative state. In particular, we have been vocally opposed to the idea that administrative agencies have the capacity to add new regulations to the law books without proper oversight from Congress, which is tasked in Article I of the Constitution to make law, and from Article III judicial review. However, the Supreme Court made that possible in 1984 in the landmark <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/467/837">case</a> Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the following:
<blockquote>
In these cases, the Administrator&#8217;s interpretation represents a reasonable accommodation of manifestly competing interests, and is entitled to deference: the regulatory scheme is technical and complex, the agency considered the matter in a detailed and reasoned fashion, and the decision involves reconciling conflicting policies. Congress intended to accommodate both interests, but did not do so itself on the level of specificity presented by these cases. Perhaps that body consciously desired the Administrator to strike the balance at this level, thinking that those with great expertise and charged with responsibility for administering the provision would be in a better position to do so; perhaps it simply did not consider the question at this level; and perhaps Congress was unable to forge a coalition on either side of the question, and those on each side decided to take their chances with the scheme devised by the agency. For judicial purposes, it matters not which of these things occurred.
Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of the Government. Courts must, in some cases, reconcile competing political interests, but not on the basis of the judges&#8217; personal policy preferences. In contrast, an agency to which Congress has delegated policymaking responsibilities may, within the limits of that delegation, properly rely upon the incumbent administration&#8217;s views of wise policy to inform its judgments. While agencies are not directly accountable to the people, the Chief Executive is, and it is entirely appropriate for this political branch of the Government to make such policy choices &#8212; resolving the competing interests which Congress itself either inadvertently did not resolve, or intentionally left to be resolved by the agency charged with the administration of the statute in light of everyday realities.
When a challenge to an agency construction of a statutory provision, fairly conceptualized, really centers on the wisdom of the agency&#8217;s policy, rather than whether it is a reasonable choice within a gap left open by Congress, the challenge must fail. In such a case, federal judges &#8212; who have no constituency &#8212; have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do. The responsibilities for assessing the wisdom of such policy choices and resolving the struggle between competing views of the public interest are not judicial ones: &#8220;Our Constitution vests such responsibilities in the political branches.&#8221; TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 195 (1978).
</blockquote>
See Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, Inc., 487 U.S. 837, 865&#8211;66 (1984).
This policy, commonly referred to as Chevron deference, allows the courts to defer the judgment of administrative agencies in making regulatory rules even if such rules could be made against the interests of the people. Contrary to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, those who run administrative agencies are not elected by the people and cannot be held accountable if their rules directly impact the lives of the people. For that reason, conservatives question the Chevron deference on the grounds that administrative agencies should face the same level of scrutiny our elected legislators receive whenever they pass bills that could be consequential to individual freedom.
The Left, however, thought that Chevron deference represented a public benefit. Whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created new regulations on the coal or oil industries or if the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) created restrictive rules against the banking industry, the Left believed that these bureaucrats represented the best interests of the people because they believed that these agencies looked out for their political agenda. By their logic, as long as Republicans in Congress are unable to gut these rules, then there would be no negative consequence for having administrative agencies acting as independent, law-making arbiters wearing the robes of a philosopher king.
Today, the Left seems to have changed its tone on appealing to the authority of administrative agencies. For example, when Scott Pruitt became Administrator of the EPA, <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/17/16481058/epa-pruitt-obama-climate-regulations-shady">the Left began to champion legal challenges</a> against the EPA&#8217;s increasing policy of removing or changing regulations. However, the largest about-face that the Left has made with regard to administrative agency deference came yesterday after the FCC <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/24691/breaking-net-neutrality-repealed-left-loses-its-ben-shapiro">voted</a> to revoke the Obama-era &#8220;Net Neutrality&#8221; rules.
Suddenly, prominent leftists started railing against the FCC&#8217;s legitimate authority to overthrow those changes. For example, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), tweeted that Congress and the courts should fight back against the FCC.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is the end of the internet as we know it. In Congress and in the courts we must fight back. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NetNeutrality?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NetNeutrality</a> <a href="https://t.co/ExKx7LFZwj">pic.twitter.com/ExKx7LFZwj</a>
&#8212; Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/941383879939837953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
In addition, 17 state Attorneys General <a href="https://twitter.com/EdKrassen/status/941395790605508609">announced</a> that they intend to sue the FCC in order to save the &#8220;Net Neutrality&#8221; regulations. By their logic, the FCC should be challenged in the courts and by Congress about their agency rules on the grounds that they violate the interests of the people. The only way to make that argument is by overruling Chevron and by giving both Congress and the courts the ability to challenge the procedural and structural merits of administrative agencies like the FCC to make laws and rules.
This represents a tremendous reversal in how the Left views the power of the administrative state. Earlier this year, the Left <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/03/neil_gorsuch_s_arrogant_frozen_trucker_opinion_shows_he_wants_to_be_like.html">chastised</a> Trump&#8217;s nomination of now-Justice Neil Gorsuch because of his vocal opposition to Chevron deference. Now, the Left seems to be more open to the realization that leaving administrative agencies to unchecked rule-making abilities does not seem to be a legitimate means to govern the people. What is rather ironic about the Left&#8217;s newfound discovery of limited enumerated constitutional powers is that this does not emanate from principle but rather political convenience. The real question is whether the Left would be willing to (rightfully) overrule Chevron deference in order to earn a victory for &#8220;Net Neutrality&#8221; in exchange for losing the war against overreaching administrative authority.
If the Left maintains this viewpoint, then the Left will once again be aligned with conservatives on the proper degree of government power and influence on individual rights. However, knowing the Left, it will likely flip-flop once it comes to a fundamental understanding of what they are actually saying in their efforts to virtue-signal to their base. After all, they want to maintain as large and as powerful of a federal government as possible and Chevron is one of their main tools to make their authoritarian dream a reality.
Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElliottRHams/">Facebook</a>.

HAMILTON: Since When Did The Left Start Advocating Against Chevron Deference?

Internet

Congress could hold a special election &#8212; ignoring the electoral college &#8212; for the presidency following removal of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, claims Harvard University&#8217;s Laurence Tribe:
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There is no inherent reason a special presidential election, if pursuant to valid legislation, would have to employ the Electoral College.
&#8212; Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/904065195873640448">September 2, 2017</a></blockquote>
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There&#8217;s no basis in the Constitution for that assumption. <a href="https://t.co/38AH7wuRvo">https://t.co/38AH7wuRvo</a>
&#8212; Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/904335695963148288">September 3, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Yes, but it leaves the mode of selection entirely to Congress &amp; is triggered whenever both P &amp; VP have resigned or been removed <a href="https://t.co/OMTKqM8p1I">https://t.co/OMTKqM8p1I</a>
&#8212; Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/904335192222875648">September 3, 2017</a></blockquote>
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I&#8217;m just reading the text of Art II Sec 1 re Congress power to &#8220;provide by Law&#8221; for the rare situation where both P &amp; VP are &#8220;removed&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/YUP19WO6yz">https://t.co/YUP19WO6yz</a>
&#8212; Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/904333126683549698">September 3, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
In July, Tribe described Trump&#8217;s joking invitation to the Russian state to provide Hillary Clinton&#8217;s email records (from the time of her tenure as sectetary of state) as possibly amounting to &#8220;treason&#8221;:

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Trump&#8217;s &#8220;jokes&#8221; inviting an adversary to wage cyberwar against the U.S. appear to violate the Logan Act and might even constitute treason.
&#8212; Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/758702401163563008">July 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/17396/zakaria-halts-law-professor-my-audience-too-dumb-robert-kraychik">In June</a>, Tribe framed Trump&#8217;s dismissal of James Comey from the FBI&#8217;s directorship as an &#8220;obstruction of justice.&#8221;

Along with Louise Mensch, Tribe regularly advances the narrative of &#8220;collusion&#8221; &#8212; between Trump, Trump&#8217;s political associates, the Russian state, and Russian President Vladimir Putin &#8212; toward subversion of American politics.

Along with The Atlantic&#8217;s David Frum, Tribe also frames Trump as monetizing the presidency. Trump, alleges Tribe, is in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

Following last year&#8217;s presidential election, Tribe immediately began advocating for lawfare strategies to revoke the election of Trump to the presidency. He offered his legal expertise in posting legal pathways toward removal of Trump from office in a New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof entitled &#8220;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/opinion/sunday/how-can-we-get-rid-of-trump.html">How Can We Get Rid Of Trump?</a>&#8221;.

Tribe is currently assisting the <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/">Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/CREWcrew">CREW</a>) in the <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/1/25/lawrence-tribe-sues-trump/">organization&#8217;s lawsuit </a>against Trump, alleging that the president is in violation of the Emoluments Clause via his luxury hotel and resort company&#8217;s selling of services to foreign government officials.

CREW also alleges that Trump&#8217;s wearing of a Make America Great Again hat as president is <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/trump-wore-usa-hat-visit-hurricane-zone-trump-fans-can-buy-look/">violative of the Emoluments clause</a>; with the president immorally enriching himself by promoting the sale of a <a href="https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/products/official-donald-trump-make-america-great-again-cap-red?variant=26118358278">$25 baseball cap</a> available from his campaign&#8217;s website.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Harvard Prof: Ditch Electoral College For ‘Special Election’ After We Remove Trump

Pop singer Taylor Swift won the counter-suit against former radio host David Mueller for alleged assault and battery after only four hours of deliberation from the jury. 
CNN <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/entertainment/taylor-swift-verdict/index.html">reports</a> that the jury also found the singer&#8217;s mother Andrea Swift and radio promotions director Frank Bell not liable in the civil suit. 
Mueller had been accused by Swift of inappropriately groping her during a meet-and-greet in June 2013. Mueller sued Swift, her mother, and Bell in 2015, saying that their accusations interfered with a contract he had made with the Denver radio station KYGO, causing them to fire him after Bell reported the alleged incident to management. Mueller was seeking $257,000 worth of damages in his suit.
The trial began in early August, with four days of testimony in which Mueller testified that he did not touch her inappropriately, only &#8220;jostling&#8221; her during a photo-op. The singer disputed his characterization testifying, &#8220;This was not jostling.&#8221; She added, &#8220;He did not touch my rib. He did not touch my arm.&#8221; Swift emphasized, &#8220;He grabbed my bare ass.&#8221;
Her attorney, Doug Baldridge, expressed his approval of the suit&#8217;s outcome, calling the trial &#8220;something that can make a difference.&#8221; He said, &#8220;It takes people like Taylor, wonderful people like Taylor, who we all know, to stand up and draw these lines.&#8221; Baldridge added, &#8220;As I said in the closing [argument], that dollar, that single dollar, is of immeasurable value in this ever-going fight to figure out where the lines are, what&#8217;s right and what&#8217;s wrong.&#8221;
Swift praised the decision, thanking her legal team and the judge, vowing to stand up for victims of sexual harassment. 
&#8220;I acknowledge the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this,&#8221; she said in a statement. &#8220;My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard. Therefore, I will be making donations in the near future to multiple organizations that help sexual assault victims defend themselves.&#8221;
Taylor Swift was awarded $1 by the jury.

Taylor Swift Wins In Groping Lawsuit Against Former Radio Host

Media

Sexual Assault

Taylor Swift

&#8220;A sitting president of the United States, and his grown children, and the first lady, are personally &#8212; I feel &#8212; personally trying to ruin my life forever,&#8221; said Kathy Griffin during a Friday press conference, framing herself as a victim of what she described as an abuse of power by the first family.
&#8220;What&#8217;s happening to me has never happened, ever, in the history of this great country,&#8221; said Griffin, presenting backlash against her photo shoot &#8212; which depicted a faux severed head of President Donald Trump &#8212; as historically unique.
Griffin presented herself as a near-martyr for and defender of free speech and expression while asking for public support:
<blockquote>
This is America, and you shouldn&#8217;t have to die for [a joke.] The death threats I&#8217;m getting, they&#8217;re constant, and they are detailed, and they are serious, and they are specific. Today it&#8217;s me, and tomorrow it could be you.
</blockquote>
Griffin cast herself as preemptively defending young girls&#8217; aspirations to become comediennes:
<blockquote>
If I don&#8217;t stand up and say this, I&#8217;m afraid there&#8217;s gonna be some 12-year-old nerdy girl like me in Oak Park, Illinois, who&#8217;s gonna maybe be watching me to see what I do. And this bully, this president, of all people, is gonna come after me? &#8230; I&#8217;m not laying down for this guy.
</blockquote>
Waxing heroic, Griffin framed her comedy career as altruistic, assisting &#8220;the gay guy &#8230; who&#8217;s scared to come out.&#8221;
&#8220;Honestly, it&#8217;s not for me, it&#8217;s for them,&#8221; said Griffin of her press conference&#8217;s purpose: to continue bringing enjoyment to her fans.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t want this to happen to anyone else,&#8221; said Griffin, alleging that Trump had ushered in a new era of authoritarianism. &#8220;There&#8217;s been a change, a real shift change, starting about 18 months ago.&#8221;
Flexing her &#8220;feminist&#8221; bona fides, Griffin claimed to have ongoing struggles against &#8220;older white guys:&#8221;
<blockquote>
I&#8217;m not afraid of Donald Trump. He&#8217;s a bully. I&#8217;ve dealt with older white guys trying to keep me down my whole life, my whole career. I&#8217;m a woman in very male-dominated field. &#8230; There&#8217;s a bunch of old white guys trying to silence me. And I&#8217;m just here to say that&#8217;s wrong. &#8230; This wouldn&#8217;t be happening to a guy. This is a woman thing &#8230; I&#8217;ve been living this my whole career.
</blockquote>
Griffin said she is being used as a &#8220;shiny object&#8221; by President Donald Trump to &#8220;distract from his FBI investigation.&#8221;
Griffin solicited legal representation from The Bloom Firm, founded by Lisa Bloom, a left-wing Democrat legal analyst with NBC and alumna of CNN/HLN.
Bloom and her mother, Gloria Allred, are left-wing Democrat lawyers who practice legal shakedowns of individuals and companies with allegations of sexism and racism. Both describe themselves as &#8220;feminists.&#8221;
Labeling herself a &#8220;civil rights attorney,&#8221; Bloom described Trump as a &#8220;woman-hating tyrannical president&#8221; who is &#8220;attempting to ruin a comedian.&#8221;
Bloom cast Griffin as a victim of anti-female sexism and misogynistic double standards, alleging that male artists were not subjected to the same standards as her client.
&#8220;She has been suffering through this,&#8221; said Bloom of Griffin.
Bloom described Griffin&#8217;s mock-severed-head photo shoot as a &#8220;parody of Trump&#8217;s own sexist remarks taken to an extreme absurdist visual,&#8221; pointing to the president&#8217;s public feud with Megyn Kelly as its inspiration.
Griffin&#8217;s &#8220;apology&#8221; on Twitter, said Bloom, was &#8220;heartfelt.&#8221; The &#8220;apology,&#8221; however, did not include a direct apology to Trump or his family.
<img alt height="542" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/kathy_griffin_lisa_bloom.jpg" width="780" />
WOODLAND HILLS, CA &#8211; JUNE 02: Kathy Griffin (C) and her attorney Lisa Bloom speak during a press conference at The Bloom Firm on June 2, 2017 in Woodland Hills, California. Griffin is holding the press conference after a controversial photoshoot where she was holding a bloodied mask depicting President Donald Trump and to address alleged bullying by the Trump family. 

Watch the press conference below.

<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YAUrwoMEnHk" width="854"></iframe></div>
Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.
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Europe May Be Trying To Put An End To Memes

HAMILTON: Since When Did The Left Start Advocating Against Chevron Deference?

Harvard Prof: Ditch Electoral College For ‘Special Election’ After We Remove Trump

Taylor Swift Wins In Groping Lawsuit Against Former Radio Host

Crying Kathy Griffin: Trump Is ‘Trying To Ruin My Life Forever!’

Menu

Lawfare

HYPOCRISY: Human Rights Watch Opposes Israeli ‘Settlements,’ Supports Settlements Elsewhere

Hammer At The ‘New York Post’: The ICC Has Some Nerve To Target Israel

HAMMER: The Trump Administration Is Absolutely Correct To Call Israeli ‘Settlements’ Legal

SHOCK: Ninth Circuit Approves Trump Admin’s ‘Wait In Mexico’ Asylum Policy

Brothers Who Helped Carry Out Alleged ‘Hate Hoax’ SUE Jussie Smollett’s Attorneys For Defamation

President Trump SUES House Democrats To Halt Demands For His Financial Records

Prominent Pro-Israel Group Sends Key Memorandum To Firms Outlining Anti-Semitic Nature Of BDS

Harry Reid Loses Battle Against TheraBand, Accused Of Struggling To Tell The Truth

Harry Reid Is Suing The Makers Of TheraBand Over His Eye Injury And It’s Not Going Very Well

About Time: Pro-Israel Lawyers Question Jurisdiction Of International Criminal Court

Covington Student Now Prepared To File Defamation Lawsuits After Being Cleared By Independent Investigation

ACLU Announces That It Will Challenge Trump’s National Emergency Declaration

Europe May Be Trying To Put An End To Memes

HAMILTON: Since When Did The Left Start Advocating Against Chevron Deference?

Harvard Prof: Ditch Electoral College For ‘Special Election’ After We Remove Trump

Taylor Swift Wins In Groping Lawsuit Against Former Radio Host

Crying Kathy Griffin: Trump Is ‘Trying To Ruin My Life Forever!’

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