Lawyers and Judges and Courts, Oh My!
I noticed a theme as I dug through this morning’s news and emails – tons of stuff is happening in legal circles, both locally and nationally. Following is a sampling of what I found...
Our fair city’s citizens who (mostly) bought their single family homes back when you didn’t have to be wealthy to find a place to live have filed a lawsuit aimed at protecting their neighborhoods from otherized humans.
The City Council’s move to ease housing construction in larger areas, as defined by distance from transit, is the trigger for the lawsuit.
To add insult to injury, their legal hook for this claim concerns the environmental impact of building taller buildings and backyard units.
From the Union-Tribune:
“This change would push high-density development farther from transit, worsening traffic congestion, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Tom Mullaney, leader of Livable San Diego.
Geoff Hueter, leader of Neighbors for a Better San Diego, said city officials should be looking for ways to spur housing growth close to transit instead of encouraging it on sites too far for transit to be a realistic option for residents.
These groups are trying to cloak their motives by saying they actually do favor “sensible growth and responsible density.”
Give me a break; scroll through the social media accounts of higher profile followers and you’ll find the gamut of excuses for why things can’t or shouldn’t be done on everything from bike lanes to neighborhood aesthetics.
Further evidence comes via a lawsuit filed last fall by Livable San Diego to block San Diego from using developer money generated in wealthy neighborhoods to build libraries, fire stations and other infrastructure in low-income areas.
The Build Better San Diego policy, they say, is unconstitutional and violates state law by prioritizing neighborhoods traditionally underserved (read: Black and Brown people) for funding by pooling these fees. They’d rather continue breaking this funding into 44 separate pots of money.
***
The Fox Tapes are blowing the lid off packaging the Big Lie for people with low cognition abilities
MSNBC aired audio recordings of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump campaign officials telling Fox News after the 2020 election that there was no evidence of Dominion voting machines flipping votes to Biden.
The tapes, recorded by former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, came to light via an amended legal complaint for her suit against the company for harassment and discrimination. She has accused the network’s lawyers of coercing her to falsely testify in the Dominion defamation case.
What we’ve learned is that Rudy Giuliani, former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, and “high-ranking” Trump campaign officials admitted in November and December 2020 they had no proof to back their election fraud claims.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis was not pleased about this revelation, and sanctioned the Fox News Channel and the Fox Corporation for withholding evidence in the defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems has launched against them over their lies about the 2020 election.
Grossberg’s lawyers say they gave the recordings to Fox, which opted not to produce them during discovery for the Dominion lawsuit. “This is a problem,” Judge Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable when you represent something to me that is the truth.”
The trial starts on Monday. Word is that there is no settlement in the works, so I can only hope a jury pours gasoline on the Faux News empire. I’ll light a match, if needed.
***
The former president’ legal woes appear to be escalating, as the Washington Post broke a story saying special counsel Jack Smith’s office appears to be looking into whether Trump raised money off his election lies. Laws against wire fraud make it illegal to ask for money over email using lies. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee raised more than $250 million between the election and January 6 by claiming the election had been “rigged.” They urged people to send money to an “election defense fund” that didn’t exist.
Trump’s punching back in the media arena with the announcement that he’s suing Michael Cohen for more than $500 million for violating attorney-client privilege and “spreading falsehoods.”
Lawyers for Trump have also asked for a one month delay for the start of a trial regarding E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him for a month.
Get this: the excuse for the ask is the intense media coverage surrounding Trump’s recent indictment—a media circus Trump fed, of course—might have tainted the jury pool.
***
News You Might Have Missed
Appeals court keeps mifepristone on the market but sharply limits access, Via Politico. This is a very limited victory for abortion advocates, as the 5th Circuit tried to get people to be less outraged by a total ban on the abortion pill by converting it to a 6 week ban on the abortion pill. And it tried to give the Supreme Court a reason to *not* intervene for a few years.
If at first you don't succeed, defund the public library Via Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information. It’s a national cause for Republicans now in their quest to keep young’uns ignorant and defame marginalized groups.
The Death Star vs Local Democracy Via Jordan Zakarin at Progress Report. Red state legislatures are intensifying efforts at preemption in an effort to block local ordinances passed by democratic leaning cities. It’s worth an excerpt.
All of this was made possible by legislative maps that rewarded (and continue to reward) dramatic lurches to the right and installed no small number of extremist reactionaries in public office. In 2022, the number of preemption bills filed doubled to more than 1000, and in the first three months of this year, the number has already reached 626.
“Gerrymandering has created state legislatures that are less representative of urban constituencies, that really dilutes people of color and their voices in the state legislative process,” Roy says. “And so, whereas local governments might be more representative and more diverse, you're seeing legislatures that are less diverse and increasingly partisan.”
In many states, those issues have involved education, discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, gun control, basic health, and reproductive rights. Some are cruel; others idiotic. In Oklahoma, for example, a recent law just prohibited schools from sending kids home if they’re found to have head lice, and in Montana, the legislature banned mandatory quarantine for people who have had direct contact with people found to have Ebola.
Assembling A Crime Wave Via Alec Karakatsanis’ Copaganda Newsletter. This explains in excruciating detail how local media and police public relations cooperate on generating scary news for political ends. Next time you see a headline about a crime wave, consider the possibility it was created to get you to take a specific action based on gut feelings rather than common sense.
Education Profiteering Accelerates in Texas - by Thomas Ultican. When library book bans aren’t cutting it, how about prescribing teacher’s daily lesson programs? If this idiocy takes hold, classrooms will be supervised to keep food fights down and kid’s heads buried in their laptops for politically correct indoctrination. Who knows? Maybe armed robots can take over, reducing school shootings and meting out punishments to unruly students. Think of the cost savings!
***
You can follow me at:
Post —→DougPorter@wordsdeedsblogger
Tribel ——> DougP Porter@dougporter506
Mastodon ——> DougPorter506@mastodon.social
Spoutible —>@dougporter506
Facebook —----> https://www.facebook.com/WordsAndDeedsBlog
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com