Articles Posted in Politics

The website recently announced updates to its policies on deceptive videos and other content designed to meddle with the voting process.


Tagged: YouTube

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered rehearing en banc in District of Columbia v. Donald J. Trump. The lawsuit, filed by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, alleges violations by President Donald J. Trump of the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.


On Friday, August 16, 2019, Judge Brian C. Wimes of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled that Mike Campbell was deprived of his constitutional right to free speech when Missouri Representative Cheri Toalson Reisch blocked Campbell from her Twitter page after Campbell retweeted a comment criticizing Reisch's political views. Judge Wimes granted Campbell's request for declaratory and injunctive relief against Reisch under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 


In a new rule that is planned to be effective Tuesday, the Trump administration is seeking to reverse decades of asylum policy by effectively denying protections to most migrants seeking asylum at the southern border of the US. The new policy, which the American Civil Liberties Union plans to promptly challenge in court, would require asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border to prove that they have sought and been denied asylum in a so-called "safe third country" before they can apply for protection in the US. 


According to news reports, since May the federal government has filed four condemnation lawsuits against local residents in the Brownsville, Texas area for the purpose of constructing a border wall along the southern border of the US. Some residents, who have been informed that the government wants access to their property for purposes of surveying land that would be involved in border wall construction, are contesting the government's terms for use of their land.


A judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that gifts from foreign governments to Trump businesses might violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.


On Monday, March 4, 2019, The New Yorker published an article online written by Jane Mayer chronicling the ties between the White House and Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. The article, titled "The Making of the Fox News White House," will be published in the print edition of the March 11, 2019 issue of The New Yorker, under the headline "Trump TV." In the article, Mayer quotes a former White House official as stating that "[t]he President does not understand the nuances of antitrust law or policy. . . [b]ut he wanted to bring down the hammer" with regards to the AT&T/Time Warner merger. 


On Monday, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a federal employees labor union, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration related to the government shutdown.


Posted in: Labor Law, Politics

Last week, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker rejected Maine Republican congressional incumbent Bruce Poliquin’s lawsuit, which sought to have the state’s ranked voting system declared unconstitutional.


Last week Congress voted to pass a farm bill that addresses the legalization of cultivating hemp in the U.S. as well as other issues such as nutrition, conservation, trade, energy, and forestry. The bill received support from both major parties, and is expected to be signed into law by President Trump.


Posted in: Politics, US Congress
Tagged: Agriculture