Latest news with #Reason
New York Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump v. California on women's sports, a risky mortgage retread, and other commentary
Olympics beat: Trump v. Cali on Women's Sports The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will become 'a slow-motion car crash' over the issue of transgender athletes in women's sports, Jennifer Sey warns at The Spectator, with President Trump facing off against California and the US Olympic Committee. 'For the first time in history,' the LA Games will see 'more women's events than men's' — but if biological men can fight for those medals, 'it's women who will lose. And some will get hurt.' Gavin Newsom doesn't toe the line on his executive order 'aimed at protecting women's sports' — yet 'taxpayer dollars earmarked for Los Angeles 2028' are already flowing. 'Compelled participation against biological men isn't inclusion,' but 'institutionalized abuse.' Eye on Wall St.: A Risky Mortgage Retread 'The American public doesn't need a sequel to 'The Big Short,' ' Veronique de Rugy snarks at Reason. The 2008 financial crisis traced in that film, was sparked by Washington, 'specifically through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,' government-sponsored lenders that (under pressure from Congress) backed 'risky home loans by effectively making taxpayers cosign the mortgages.' Those 'significantly loosened lending standards' wound up 'inflating the housing bubble.' Now, President Trump is floating plans to 're-privatize' Fannie and Freddie without taking taxpayers off the hook for bad loans. Aargh! 'Financial entities — particularly those shielded by government guarantees — inevitably revert to risky behavior when market pressures and profit incentives align.' The only safe way to privatize Fannie and Freddie is 'without any implicit government guarantees.' From the right: A Win Over Climate Hysteria 'The right to express an opinion contrary to the 'settled science' was vindicated last week in the District of Columbia Superior Court,' cheers The Washington Times' editorial board. Penn State University researcher Michael Mann's 'hockey stick' chart 'stoked climate panic around the world, then he sued critics who implied his 'findings were erroneous.' A DC jury last year awarded Mann '$1 million in punitive damages,' but that 'victory was based in part on a chart containing numbers that couldn't be replicated' — so it seems he 'will now end up paying the individuals he sued a total of around $1.4 million.' Conservative: Mamdani's Hateful Lies Progressive mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, already 'a post-Oct. 7 vessel for the de-stigmatized tidal wave of anti-Semitism in the West,' this week 'crossed a line that was staggeringly militant even in our current age of say-anything shock-jock politics,' thunders Commentary's Seth Mandel. In a campaign stop at a mosque, he denounced 'Israel's pager operation, likely the most carefully targeted such operation in the history of warfare, in which the pagers only of Hezbollah exploded, maiming thousands of terrorists after the group had waged months of war on Israeli civilians.' He claimed it killed 'scores of Lebanese civilians,' marvels Mandel, when 'not even Lebanese authorities claimed as much. The only way that number is accurate is if Mamdani considers Hezbollah terrorists to be civilians, which is possible, because he does not mention Hezbollah at all in his remarks.' Civil-rights watch: Whistleblowers vs. DEI The Justice Department's 'Civil Rights Fraud Initiative, which will use the False Claims Act, encourages whistleblowers to come forward with evidence of illegal' discrimination, applauding Edward Blum & Adam Mortara at The Wall Street Journal. 'Universities, corporations, and nonprofit organizations have established 'diversity, equity and inclusion' policies that violate the plain language of civil-rights laws,' yet 'receive billions in federal funding by falsely certifying that they are in compliance with those laws.' For instance, 'a university can't accept taxpayer dollars while condoning antisemitism on campus or treating applicants differently based on race.' The Justice initiative gives whistleblowers 'an incentive to come forward and expose unlawful discrimination' by letting them collect a share of potential multimillion-dollar damages. — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Civil Rights Groups Say Immigrants Are Being Denied Legal Access at Detention Centers
A group of civil rights and legal organizations say immigrant detainees being held at two federal detention centers are being denied their constitutional right to legal counsel. One of those detention centers is a Miami facility flagged by Reason earlier this week for allegations of overcrowding and dysfunction. In letters to the Trump administration released Thursday, Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ), the American Civil Liberties Union, and several other groups urged the administration to immediately restore detainees' access to legal counsel at Federal Correctional Institution Leavenworth (FCI Leavenworth) and Federal Detention Center-Miami (FDC Miami), two Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities that are holding hundreds of detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the letters, attorneys for AIJ, Florida Legal Services, and the University of Miami Immigration Clinic "have witnessed and documented troubling systemic failures to provide individuals detained in immigration custody with access to vital legal resources and counsel" at FDC Miami. Those deprivations include regular denial of access to legal documents, legal mail, and attorney calls. The groups say these restrictions violate detainees' due process rights under the Fifth Amendment and their First Amendment right to free speech. "Denying detained immigrants access to legal documents, mail, and phone calls makes it all but impossible to fight and win an immigration case," AIJ Executive Director Sui Chung said in a press release. "The systemic denial of due process at FDC-Miami has impacted immigrants who desperately seek refuge and are legally entitled to pursue relief in the United States." The letter echoes descriptions by BOP employees and immigration lawyers of poor conditions and bureaucratic chaos in FDC Miami, where roughly 400 immigrant detainees are being held on two floors. The federal prison system has struggled for years to get a handle on crumbling facilities, understaffing and low morale, and endemic corruption, but it was nevertheless pressed into service to handle the influx of detentions under Trump's mass deportation program. A BOP employee told Reason that four of the eight elevators in the multi-story tower are broken, leading to frequent lockdowns that restrict detainees' access to phones and computers. "I've been at FDC Miami for 16 years," Kenny Castillo, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 501, the union representing Bureau of Prisons employees at the lockup, said. "I've never seen the building like I see it right now." In their letter, the civil rights groups say crucial legal paperwork is going missing when detainees are transferred to and from FDC Miami. Legal mail is delayed or never arrives. They say it takes days, sometimes over a week, for attorneys to schedule a phone call with a client. "These failures and delays have serious—potentially devastating—consequences for detained individuals' ability access and communicate with counsel, as well as their ability to apply for protection in the U.S. and to fight their cases in immigration court, as is their constitutional right." The cumulative effect of all this is that attorneys say it's nearly impossible to plan a legal strategy for their clients. "I had a hearing this morning, and the judge ordered me to speak with [my client]," Katie Blankenship, an attorney at Sanctuary of the South, said. "I couldn't be at FDC, and they wouldn't get me on the phone with him. I had to go to court this morning and be like, 'Sorry judge, no, I did not speak to my client, because I couldn't.'" The dysfunction at FDC Miami erupted into a mini-riot on April 15, after the afternoon headcount dragged on for nearly five hours. A group of disgruntled detainees flooded a floor of the unit, and BOP correctional officers responded with concussive flashbang grenades. The civil rights groups allege similar conditions at FCI Leavenworth in Kansas, where they say immigrant detainees are subjected to lengthy lockdowns, abusive use-of-force, and medical neglect. In response to a request for comment, a BOP spokesperson said the agency is "committed to ensuring the safety and security of all inmates in our population, our staff, and the public. However, we do not comment on matters related to pending litigation, legal proceedings, or investigations." ICE did not respond to a request for comment. The post Civil Rights Groups Say Immigrants Are Being Denied Legal Access at Detention Centers appeared first on
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What To Expect Now That Trump Has Scrapped Biden's Crippling AI Regulations
President Donald Trump pledged to remove barriers to American leadership in AI in January. The president recently made good on this promise by directing the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to scrap President Joe Biden's Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion on May 13, two days before it was set to go into effect. Although it is unclear what the Trump administration will replace it with, the rescission of the Biden-era framework recognizes the necessity of exporting American chips and AI to maintain America's technological, economic, and strategic dominance. The Biden framework would have amended export regulations to impose a worldwide license regime on all advanced semiconductors designed for data center use. This would have also hit graphics processing units (GPUs) used for AI acceleration, including foreign product chips that are "direct products" of American technology. This would have not only subjected geopolitical rivals such as China to strict controls but also restricted the number of GPUs sold to 150 other countries, many of which are close trading partners and allies, such as Israel, and some which are NATO members (Greece, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania), per the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, tells Reason that the diffusion framework "established a world-wide regime that would have restricted American companies from trading with friends and allies overseas." Chilson says the rule's rescission helps American companies keep the global lead in AI technology. Keegan McBride, a senior policy adviser in emerging technology and geopolitics at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, agrees. McBride tells Reason that rescinding the Biden rule "opens up new opportunities for innovation, economic growth, and global engagement." With the Biden-era framework dead, the Trump administration has announced its "Industry Guidance to Prevent Diversion of Advanced Computing Integrated Circuits." Instead of imposing a complex regulatory scheme, the new guidance informs semiconductor manufacturers how to remain in compliance with existing export restrictions that have been in place since October 2022. The guidance still recognizes the danger of China acquiring advanced chips through transshipment or diversion and by accessing data centers. The guidance also provides "common sense recommendations about how companies can help [prevent] such chips from ending up in Chinese hands," explains Chilson. Chilson anticipates the guidance to be followed by "a new rule that attempts to address some of the divergence scenarios highlighted in the guidance" and expects a more tailored solution that reflects awareness of the negative effects of the Biden approach. Matthew Mittelsteadt, a technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute, is less optimistic. "At this juncture, the administration has signaled a desire to negotiate controls bilaterally, country by country," which Mittelsteadt warns may lead to "195 country-specific flavors of AI export controls" that would hamper American companies' competitiveness and overburden the license processors at the Commerce Department. Overinclusive regulations like Biden's Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion would have hampered economic growth and national security; capping demand for American-made advanced GPUs reduces revenue to domestic semiconductor and AI firms that require capital to invest in research and development, innovate, and maintain industry dominance. McBride is confident that the Trump administration understands that the "active promotion of American AI to the global community" is a crucial component of winning the AI race against China. Hopefully, he's right. The post What To Expect Now That Trump Has Scrapped Biden's Crippling AI Regulations appeared first on
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Did 'Activist Judges' Derail Trump's Tariffs?
In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday's federal court ruling that blocked the Trump administration's tariffs on nearly all imports, the president's allies have turned to a predictable excuse for the sweeping legal defeat. "It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency," said Kush Desai, the White House's deputy press secretary, in a statement. "President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness." "With activist judges, what is even the point of having a president?!" posted conservative pundit Charlie Kirk (in a tweet that inaccurately characterized just about every aspect of the legal ruling). "The judicial coup is out of control," wrote Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, on X. These reactions are as inaccurate as they are lame. In Miller's view, apparently, a "coup" occurs when judges tell the president that he has overstepped the bounds of his powers under the law—rather than when a president seizes those expansive powers. That's a very silly definition of a coup. More importantly, it's also a misleading description of what the Court of International Trade ruled on Wednesday. In this case, it was the Trump administration, not the court, that was claiming to be able to exercise unlimited, unchecked power by invoking a law. Trump had used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on nearly all imports to the U.S., even though that law narrowly authorizes presidential actions only in response to "an unusual and extraordinary threat." International commerce is plainly neither of those things, as the court concluded in its ruling. "We do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President," the judges wrote. "We instead read IEEPA's provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers." By reviewing the actions of the executive branch to ensure they comport with the underlying law, the Court of International Trade merely fulfilled the constitutional role of the judiciary. "This ruling reaffirms that the President must act within the bounds of the law, and it protects American businesses and consumers from the destabilizing effects of volatile, unilaterally imposed tariffs," Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, the public-interest law firm that represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit before the Court of International Trade, told Reason in a statement. In short, that's the opposite of a coup. The claim that these were "activist judges" also doesn't stand up to scrutiny. For starters, one of the three judges who issued Wednesday's unanimous ruling was appointed by Trump. Judge Timothy Reif was nominated in June 2018, during the first Trump administration. The other two judges who decided the case were appointed by Presidents Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. That seems like a pretty fair panel: A liberal, an older conservative, and a Trump appointee. All three agreed that Trump had overstepped his authority with the tariffs. Additionally, the court's ruling leaned on two bits of jurisprudence that conservatives have long championed as a way for courts to check executive authority: the "nondelegation" and "major questions" doctrines. The former says, in effect, that Congress cannot delegate its core lawmaking authority to other branches of the government. The latter says the same thing in reverse: That major questions of policy must be decided by Congress, not the other branches. The court found that Trump's tariffs failed on both counts. In the ruling, the three judges wrote that "an unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government. Regardless of whether the court views the President's actions through the nondelegation doctrine, through the major questions doctrine, or simply with separation of powers in mind, any interpretation of IEEPA that delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional." The idea that these judges—a majority of whom were appointed by Republicans and who were exercising a pair of conservative legal theories in evaluating Trump's tariffs—were somehow unfairly biased against the president is simply laughable. There may be some questions about the basic legitimacy of the Court of International Trade, which most Americans have probably never encountered. Let's put those to rest too. The court was created by an act of Congress in 1980 to adjudicate disputes exactly like this one. Like in all federal courts, rulings from the Court of International Trade can be appealed—and the Trump administration has already indicated that it will appeal Wednesday's sweeping tariff ruling. It's also somewhat telling that the Trump administration's lawyers have been trying to move other tariff-related cases into this court. Rather than viewing the Court of International Trade as illegitimate or biased, it seems like the administration believed that the court would be the friendliest legal venue for reviewing the president's claimed tariff powers—at least until Wednesday evening. (That belief was shared by many trade policy observers, including myself, who were skeptical that the courts would be willing to intervene in such a direct way to block tariffs imposed under the IEEPA.) Whether as a legal matter or a practical one, Trump's allies are simply wrong when they claim that the administration is the victim of judicial activism in the tariff ruling. The Court of International Trade's decision to strike down the tariffs and draw clear lines around the president's emergency economic powers is well-reasoned and appropriate. It's also the sort of ruling that conservatives would be universally cheering if it were brought down against a Democratic president's power grab. This isn't a judicial coup or an unfair result. Trump exceeded the limits of the power granted to him by Congress, and the courts put a stop to it. That's exactly how our constitutional system is supposed to work. The post Did 'Activist Judges' Derail Trump's Tariffs? appeared first on
Newsweek
6 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
New Confession Box Law Has a Legal Problem: Lawyer
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Washington State's bill to tackle sexual abuse has another legal problem when it comes to discerning between what speech is confidential and what is not, according to contract law professor Mark Movsesian. Writing for the news outlet Reason, Movsesian said: "Washington's law expressly preserves other professional privileges, like the attorney-client privilege, but explicitly eliminates the clergy-penitent privilege. That unequal treatment presents a serious problem under current free exercise law." The law, which is set to take effect on July 2, has already come under scrutiny from leaders within the Catholic Church, who say it directly undermines their ability to keep confessions confidential and sets priests up to either be arrested for breaking the law or excommunicated from the Church for exposing secrets told to them in Confession. Professor Movsesian and the Washington State bill sponsor, State Senator Noel Frame, and Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown have been contacted via email for comment. The exterior of the Washington State Capitol building is seen Friday, April 25, 2025, in Olympia, Washington. The exterior of the Washington State Capitol building is seen Friday, April 25, 2025, in Olympia, Washington. Maddy Grassy/AP Photo Why It Matters The law has triggered a national conversation about the boundaries of church and state at a time when the Justice Department (DOJ) under the Trump Administration is making efforts to crack down on what it sees as "anti-Chrisitan bias" in the United States. What To Know The new statute—signed by Governor Bob Ferguson—mandates clergy report suspected child abuse within 48 hours, aligning them with existing reporting laws for police officers, nurses, and teachers. It has received significant pushback from Catholic leaders, however, the law's sponsor, State Senator Noel Frame, said she wrote the law in part due to secrecy practices within the Jehovah's Witness church which they likened to Catholic Confession. According to Frame, herself an assault survivor, Jehovah's Witnesses were taken to court in Washington State following an investigation into sexual abuse and claimed that their internal review process could remain private as they were covered by anonymity akin to a Catholic confession. However, Catholic leaders in the state are pushing back against this bill, saying that they are already mandatory reporters in every scenario except for confession. And, if they hear something that should be reported while in confession, they can encourage that person to speak to them in a different, safe place and to seek professional and legal help. Now, Professor Movsesian has brought up another legal question, which is how the state differentiates between confidentiality in one setting versus another. Movsesian discussed the bill with Catholic University law professor Marc DeGirolami. Professor DeGirolami said: "In this case, Washington allows secular privileges, like the attorney-client... "The fact of including clergy in the same kinds of reporting requirements as everybody else I don't think is the singling out of religion, it's simply the inclusion of religion or clergy with respect to this reporting requirement that all others or a number of other professionals are subject to. That I don't think is a targeting issue. But, here it's the privilege issue, the privilege component that I think is the tricky part, so it allows secular privileges, like the attorney-client privilege, but it denies the religious equivalent." DeGirolami went on to say: "Under the "most-favored nation" privilege of free exercise, that's a problem. That's the kind of discriminatory structure in a law that the court isn't going to look on favorably." He said it is legally questionable to allow therapists or lawyers to retain confidentiality with their clients but not clergy. And that making a distinction between which professions are allowed this privilege could create an argument for the existence of religious discrimination. Movsesian goes on to discuss another legal debate from 1813, People v Phillips, when a priest refused to testify in a case about stolen goods that were returned to him during confession. Lawyers for New York State said that religion was no excuse for defying public safety. However, the judge ruled in favor of the priest, saying that the state could not force the priest to defy "one of the central ordinances of his faith." The bill is being investigated by the Justice Department (DOJ), which says this bill conflicts with the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion in Washington State. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference at the Justice Department, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference at the Justice Department, Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. Ben Curtis, File/AP Photo What People Are Saying Marc DeGirolami, speaking on Legal Spirits: "If you let lawyers withhold the evidence, or if you let psychotherapists withhold the evidence, why aren't you letting clergy in the context of a confessional withhold evidence? ... if the interest is really compelling, either you want all the evidence or you're making some kind of judgment about which relationships deserve legal protection and arguably that's where religious discrimination comes in. But it's also a suggestion that your interest really isn't as compelling as you're saying it is because if it were you'd make no exceptions to it." Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said in a May 5 news DOJ news release: "[The law] demands that Catholic Priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law, a violation of the Constitution and a breach of the free exercise of religion cannot stand under our Constitutional system of the law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compare d to other reporting professionals. We take this matter very seriously and look forward to Washington State's cooperation with our investigation." Jean Hill, executive director of Washington State Catholic Conference (WSCC), told Newsweek: "The WSCC supported the mandatory reporting legislation throughout its history in the Washington state legislature. Our only request was that the state uphold our state and federal constitutional rights to maintain the Seal of Confession, as required by Canon Law." What Happens Next The DOJ is taking Washington State to court over this law. It is unclear at this time whether it will take effect on July 27.
