Law | Boots & Sabers

Hunter’s Finances Have Collapsed

by Owen | 1634, 6 Mar 25 | Law, Politics | 1 Comment

As we have been saying all along… Joe Biden WAS the family business. Selling access to Joe was how Hunter and others made money. With Joe out of office in disgrace, nobody is going to spend money on Hunter. Now he’s a 50-something year-old man with no marketable skills and no gainful way to make money. Pathetic waste of skin.

In a court filing on Wednesday, Mr Biden’s attorneys urged US District Judge Hernan D Vera to end the lawsuit, stating that he “has suffered a significant downturn in his income and has significant debt in the millions of dollars range”.

The son of former President Joe Biden has also faced a series of financial setbacks, with January’s wildfire in the Pacific Palisades – where he was staying – making his rental home “unliveable” for an extended period.

Along with struggling to find stable housing and deal with fire damage, Mr Biden is having difficulties earning a steady income, according to the filing, and major sources of money have dried up.

Mr Biden is unable to borrow and sales of both his art and his memoir – his two major income streams – have fallen off over the last 18 months, according to the filing.

He had sold 27 pieces of art for an average price of $54,500 in the years leading up to the lawsuit. He has sold only one piece for $36,000 since.

Book sales for his memoir, Beautiful Things, dropped from more than 3,100 copies between April and September 2023 to roughly 1,100 in the following six months.

Voters Sue Over Uncounted Ballots

by Owen | 1620, 6 Mar 25 | Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment

Since WEC is incapable of holding election officials accountable for their incompetence or malfeasance, voters will have to do it through the courts.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Four Wisconsin voters whose ballots were not counted in the November presidential election initiated a class-action lawsuit Thursday seeking $175,000 in damages each.

The voters were among 193 in Madison whose ballots were misplaced by the city clerk and not discovered until weeks after the election. Not counting the ballots didn’t affect the result of any races.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission investigated but did not determine whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl failed to comply with state law or abused her discretion.

She didn’t notify the elections commission of the problem until December, almost a month and a half after the election and after the results were certified on Nov. 29.

The goal is to reinforce and strengthen the right to vote in Wisconsin, said attorney Jeff Mandell, who is general counsel of Law Forward, which filed claims against the city of Madison and Dane County on Thursday.

Arguments Heard for Discrimination Case

by Owen | 1822, 26 Feb 25 | Law | 1 Comment

Can we all just agree that discrimination in employment is just bad irrespective of whether one is in the majority or minority? Individual liberty and individual treatment are the paths to happiness.

Ames alleges her employer denied her a promotion and later demoted her, in both cases selecting gay candidates instead who were less qualified. Her supervisor at the time was also gay.

A Good Reminder that Even Federal Judges Can Be Idiots

by Owen | 1021, 22 Feb 25 | Law, Politics | 1 Comment

Yup.

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s bid to deprive federal funding from programs that incorporate “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives.

U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson ruled that Trump’s policy likely violates the First Amendment because it penalizes private organizations based on their viewpoints. And the judge said the policy is written so vaguely that it chills the free speech of federal contractors concerned they will be punished if they don’t eliminate programs meant to encourage a diverse workforce.

Abelson, a Baltimore-based appointee of former President Joe Biden, said longstanding court precedent bars the federal government from “leveraging its funding to restrict federal contractors and grantees from otherwise exercising their First Amendment rights.”

Let’s engage in a simple logic exercise. If the federal government can put DEI requirements into contracts that requires private companies to comply by having DEI programs, then the opposite is equally true. The newly elected federal government can insist that companies that do business with the federal government do not have DEI programs. It does not violate the 1st Amendment because there is nothing that compels a private company to do business with the federal government. Most companies don’t.

Trump Orders Firing of all Biden US Attorneys

by Owen | 2041, 18 Feb 25 | Law, Politics | 1 Comment

He is absolutely correct. There may be some good ones in that group, but it’s impossible to tell which ones. Meanwhile, after the gross misallocation of resources and undeniable political bias of their prosecutorial priorities, they need to go.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he has instructed the Justice Department to terminate all remaining Biden-era U.S. attorneys, asserting that the department had been “politicized like never before.”

“We must ‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Appeals Court Rules Against Age Requirement for Handguns

by Owen | 1951, 30 Jan 25 | Culture, Firearms, Law | 0 Comments

Excellent. There should only be one age of majority.

A conservative US appeals court on Thursday ruled that a ban on handgun sales to people between the ages of 18 and 21 violates the second amendment.

The ruling, handed down by a panel of three judges on the fifth US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans, comes amid major shifts in the national firearm legal landscape following a landmark US supreme court decision that expanded gun rights in 2022.

The New Orleans court found that the federal law requiring young adults to be 21 is unconstitutional.

“Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” the court wrote in their ruling. The ruling sends the case back to a lower court judge.

Birth Tourist Guide Sentenced

by Owen | 2116, 27 Jan 25 | Crime, Law, Politics | 0 Comments

“Obama era” wha!?!

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California woman was sentenced Monday to more than 3 years in prison in a long-running case over a business that helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States to deliver babies who automatically became American citizens.

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner gave Phoebe Dong a 41-month sentence and ordered her immediately taken into custody from his federal court in Los Angeles. Dong and her husband were convicted in September of conspiracy and money laundering through their company, USA Happy Baby.

The sentencing came as birthright citizenship has been thrust into the spotlight in the United States with the return of President Donald Trump to the White House. Since taking office, Trump issued an executive order to narrow the definition of birthright citizenship, a move quickly blocked by a federal judge who called it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

Dong and her husband, Michael Liu, were among more than a dozen people charged in an Obama-era crackdown on so-called “birth tourism” schemes that helped Chinese women hide their pregnancies while traveling to the United States to give birth. Such businesses have long operated in various states catering to people from China, Russia, Nigeria and elsewhere.

[…]

Federal prosecutors sought a more than five year sentence for Dong and argued that she and Liu helped more than 100 pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States. They said the pair worked with others to coach women on how to trick customs officials by flying into airports believed to be more lax while wearing loose-fitting clothing to hide their pregnancies.

Judge Rules Against Trump in Presidential Immunity Assertion

by Owen | 2016, 16 Dec 24 | Law, Politics | 0 Comments

This is the correct ruling and shows how narrowly the Supreme Court ruled giving presidents immunity for official acts.

The New York judge in President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case ruled Monday that the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision does not apply to that case.

Trump had sought to dismiss his criminal indictment and vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that prosecutors, during the trial last May, introduced evidence relating to Trump’s official acts as president, after the Supreme Court later ruled in July that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office.

However, Judge Juan Merchan said on Monday that the evidence in Trump’s hush money case related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”

Dane County Judge Strikes Down Act 10

by Owen | 1811, 3 Dec 24 | Law, Politics | 2 Comments

FFS

MADISON, Wis. – A Dane County judge struck down on Monday, Dec. 2 parts of Act 10, a Wisconsin law that placed limits on government workers’ unions.

The judge already ruled in July that the law broke the Wisconsin Constitution. Now on Dec. 2, 2024, Judge Jacob Frost released his decision laying out what parts of Act 10 should be struck as unconstitutional.

“This gets to the heart of the Court’s July Decision –the unconstitutional creation of the “public safety employee” group and differential treatment of it without a rational basis – so I strike these sections,” Frost wrote in the new decision.

I can’t tell you how exhausting I find the prospect of litigating Act 10 again. We did this ten years ago. The law is clearly, unequivocally, irrevocably constitutional and the policy has had a tremendously positive impact on the state.

But none of that matters. The Leftist judges in Madison – especially the ones on the Supreme Court – are going to gut it anyway for brazen political purposes. It is the absolute worst manifestation of a corrupted judicial system that rules to ideological outcomes instead of allegiance to the rule of law.

Evers’ Unconstitutional Veto Challenged

by Owen | 1943, 21 Sep 24 | Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

I’d like to think that this has a chance of succeeding, but I doubt it with our Leftist Supreme Court.

There are new challenges to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year school funding increase.

Both the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and the Institute for Reforming Government recently filed amicus briefs with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, challenging the governor’s veto power.

“The partial veto power is a tool in the governor’s toolbelt, but it has a specific purpose. When it comes to fiscal policy, the partial veto power is a one-way rachet. It empowers the governor to tighten public spending and taxation by eliminating or reducing budgetary items, but it does not permit the reverse. The governor cannot use the partial veto power to increase either appropriations or revenue. That function requires a different tool – legislative power – which is not in the governor’s toolbelt,” IRGs brief states.

Evers changed a line in the current state budget to change a two-year school funding increase into a 400-year increase.

Recognize that if/when the Republicans are able to reverse this some time in the future, the liberals will accuse Republicans of cutting school funding.

Supreme Court Continues to Leak

by Owen | 1747, 15 Sep 24 | Law, Politics | 0 Comments

It was inevitable that leaks would continue to happen after nothing was done when the abortion ruling leaked. No consequences = more of the same.

Chief Justice John Roberts strong-armed his fellow Supreme Court judges into allowing him the key role in cases involving Donald Trump, leaked memos reveal.

Wisconsin Leftist Judges Work to Rig Election

by Owen | 2154, 22 Aug 24 | Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

The leftist judges on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are actually doing the work of the DNC to keep the Green Party off the ballot. Where are the Greens?

(The Center Square) – Following the Wisconsin Election Commission’s dismissal of a complaint from a Democratic National Committee staffer, who seeks to remove Green Party candidate Jill Stein from the ballot, the plaintiff has doubled down and filed an expedited appeal with the state’s Supreme Court.

Court documents reveal it accepted the case Thursday and is requesting that the plaintiff provide additional information, actions that have caused two Supreme Court justices to dissent.

“The majority issues an unprecedented order directing the petitioner – within two hours – to give the court contact information for the respondents, which is currently absent from the record because no one has entered an appearance on behalf of any of those parties. How is the petitioner – an employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – supposed to know the name or physical address of an ‘attorney or other representative of each respondent who is authorized to accept service of orders issued by this court’?” Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote in dissent of the Supreme Court’s majority ruling. “To my knowledge, at no time in history has the court issued orders before parties had made their appearances. Petitioner filed this original action on Monday, served the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday, and served the Wisconsin Green Party just yesterday. The majority steps beyond its neutral role to lawyer the case on behalf of the DNC, seemingly facilitating an expedited review of this original action. Other parties presenting original action petitions have not received such preferential treatment by this court.”

Secret Service Breaks Into Business During Kamala Fundraiser

by Owen | 0836, 11 Aug 24 | Crime, Law, Politics | 26 Comments

This is a much bigger deal than the story makes it out to be.

A Massachusetts Salon owner feels ‘violated’ after the United States Secret Service broke into her business during a nearby fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Footage from a Ring security camera shows an agent approaching the front door of the business in Berkshire, Massachusetts last week before coming back to tape over the video camera.

Alicia Powers, the salon owner, said after the camera was covered, agents broke into the building by picking the lock and then allowing multiple people to use the bathroom inside over a two-hour period.

We have a right to our private property and that right is strongly protected in several places in the U.S. Constitution. Without a warrant or probable cause, these agents broke into a private business to use for their own purposes. The purpose is immaterial. The Secret Service had no more right to enter that building without permission than any thug on the street. If a rando had broken in, they would be prosecuted and put in jail. The same thing should happen to the agents. They don’t get to say, “ope, our bad” and move on. I wouldn’t be able to do that. They should be held to the same or higher standard.

The whole thing speaks to a culture at the Secret Service that disregards the rights of citizens and does not hold itself accountable. It speaks to a culture of an agency that considers itself above the law. They are behaving as a modern Praetorian Guard instead of as a law enforcement and protection agency in a Constitutional Republic.

It seems that all of our federal agencies have become rotten to the core.

Biden Proposes to Usurp the Supreme Court

by Owen | 0717, 29 Jul 24 | Law, Politics | 23 Comments

First, no, Joe Biden did not write this screed. They won’t tell us who did.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden called for major changes to the Supreme Court on Monday, including a constitutional amendment that would limit immunity for presidents, impose term limits for justices and stipulate an enforceable code of ethics.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Biden said “no one is above the law.”

“Not the president of the United States,” he wrote. “Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.”

[…]

Biden, who served as a U.S. Senator for 36 years, wrote that he had overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today.

Remember that Biden would not be proposing any of these things if the court were reliably issuing ruling that the liberals want. For 50 years, the court leaned Left and nobody proposed these kinds of things. Now that the court has tilted slightly right for less than a decade, liberals have decided that the court needs to be blown up.

Thankfully, none of this stands a chance of passing with a divided Congress and a lame duck President. It is curious that he would push it at all. Harris is the Leftist standard-bearer now. By tipping their hand that the Leftists want to radically usurp the power of the Supreme Court, does this help Harris? She will have to now offer her position on his reforms, right? Or is this a setup where Harris will come out against these “reforms” to make her look more moderate? Or is Biden just a bitter old man who wants to demonstrate that he still matters?

Curious…

Hartford School Board Protects Girls

by Owen | 0652, 24 Jul 24 | Crime, Education, Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments

Good for them. We win back this country at the local level with work like this.

HARTFORD — The Hartford Union High School (HUHS) Board voted not to accept a revised definition of the term “sex” under Title IX on Monday night.

[…]

The current HUHS process regarding students wanting to use different pronouns or a different name would not change. The school would still contact the parents and set up a meeting or have conversations with the parents, and only the parents’ written permission would allow HUHS to address the student by that name or pronouns.

Hunter Deploys Trump Defense

by Owen | 0634, 19 Jul 24 | Crime, Law, Politics | 0 Comments

I’m not a lawyer, but this seems to hold some merit. Some.

Attorneys for President Joe Biden‘s son Hunter Biden, citing the recent decision by a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the classified documents case against Donald Trump, filed a pair of motions in California and Delaware Thursday seeking to dismiss both federal criminal cases against him.

“The Attorney General relied upon the exact same authority to appoint the Special Counsel in both the Trump and Biden matters, and both appointments are invalid for the same reason,” attorneys for Biden argued in the filings.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled this week that special counsel Jack Smith‘s appointment in Trump’s classified documents case was unconstitutional, prompting several legal observers to argue that the same logic should apply to Hunter Biden.

Cannon’s order, however, draws a distinction between Smith and other special counsels.

Attorney General Merrick Garland pulled Smith from The Hague, where he was prosecuting war criminals — not the Justice Department. By contrast, the special counsel in Hunter Biden’s cases, David Weiss, previously served as U.S. Attorney in Delaware, where he had been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Cannon characterized Smith as a “private citizen exercising the full power of a United States Attorney,” saying that his appointment was unconstitutional because it “effectively usurps” the authority of Congress.

Biden Proposes Stacking the Supreme Court

by Owen | 2031, 16 Jul 24 | Law, Politics | 11 Comments

Who is a threat to the Republic? It’s quite rich that Biden – a man who has been in government so long that he is going senile in office – would propose term limits.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is seriously considering proposals to establish term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, and an ethics code that would be enforceable under law amid growing concerns that the justices are not held accountable, according to three people briefed on the plans.

It would mark a major shift for Biden, the former head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has long resisted calls to reform the high court, though since taking office he has been increasingly vocal about his belief that the court is abandoning mainstream constitutional interpretation. The details were first reported by The Washington Post.

Any changes would require congressional approval, which would be unlikely in a divided Congress. But with Republican nominee Donald Trump bragging about putting the three justices on the high court who are now part of the conservative majority, Biden’s call for major changes could help animate his voters.

The Supreme Court leaned to the Left for my entire life until it swung to the Right under Trump. Republicans worked the entire time to win elections and try to make good selections (only about 50/50 successful) to change the philosophical makeup of the court. The Democrats just can’t stand it and don’t want to put in the work to swing it back. Instead, they just want to change the rules to make it easier for them.

This will never make it into law. If it did, this court would likely strike it down anyway. But the fact that Biden is willing to go there to appease his rabid Marxist base speaks to how much our Republic is on the knife’s edge.

Leftists on Wisconsin Supreme Court Finally Make Move to Allow Abortions

by Owen | 0707, 3 Jul 24 | Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 2 Comments

Here we go.

Madison, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Tuesday to consider two challenges to a 175-year-old law that conservatives maintain bans abortion without letting the cases wind through lower courts.

Abortion advocates stand an excellent chance of prevailing in both cases given the high court’s liberal tilt and remarks a liberal justice made on the campaign trail about how she supports abortion rights.

[…]

Stripper Sues Over Florida’s New Age Law

by Owen | 1822, 2 Jul 24 | Law | 0 Comments

I’m not going to comment on the merits of the case, but that is a stripper name for a very specific kind of patron.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A 19-year-old and the club where she worked as a stripper have sued Florida’s attorney general and two local prosecutors to stop enforcement of a new state law prohibiting adult entertainment businesses from employing people who are under 21, claiming it violates their constitutional rights.

Serenity Michelle Bushey claims in the lawsuit that she lost her job at Cafe Risque in the Gainesville area after the law took effect on Monday since she is younger than 21. The purpose of the law was to deter human trafficking, according to Florida lawmakers.

Trump’s Sentencing Delayed

by Owen | 1806, 2 Jul 24 | Crime, Law, Politics | 1 Comment

I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t see how the SCOTUS ruling would impact a state case about something that candidate Trump allegedly did. Even if one accepts the facts of the case, it would not be an official act of a president.

A New York judge has delayed Donald Trump’s sentencing until September as his lawyers seek to challenge his conviction after a Supreme Court ruling.

Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July.

His legal team asked for his conviction in a hush-money case to be overturned after the nation’s highest court ruled Monday that former presidents had partial immunity for “official” acts during their presidency.

Justice Juan Merchan said on Tuesday that he would issue a decision on the motions by 6 September.

If sentencing is necessary, the judge wrote, it will take place on 18 September.

Call me cynical, but I believe that the sentence will be in direct correlation to Trump’s position in the polls at that time.

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