#Northern District of Texas

[nationallawreview]

Down to the Wire for Employers and FTC Noncompete Ban

Compliance Deadline Approaches Employers are running out of time to comply with the FTC’s purported regulatory ban on non-competition agreements. The ban – announced on April 23, 2024 – is scheduled to take effect on September 4. 2024. By that date, the regulation requires that employers notify all employees subject to noncompetes that the agreements will no longer be enforced. The only…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

It’s been barely a week since conservatives on the US Supreme Court radically upended the balance of power between the branches of government, giving the federal courts the exclusive power to interpret statutes rather than deferring to agency experts. And we’re already seeing impacts on the ground. Right-wingers have been in the habit of running to their preferred courts to get regulations overturned, but the decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which officially destroyed agency deference, will make it easier — even routine — to block every Biden administration rule they don’t like.  Lawsuits to invalidate specific rules had been proceeding through the federal courts before Loper Bright, generally arguing that agencies exceeded their authority in promulgating a rule. These lawsuits exist in no small part because the Supreme Court made it clear they would destroy Chevron deference for years now, with Justice Neil Gorsuch having led the way well before his appointment to the Court. 

Trump appointee Sean Jordan, who sits in the reliably hard-right Eastern District of Texas, was so eager to block a Biden administration’s overtime rule that he dropped his decision the same day Loper Bright came out. It runs 36 pages and mentions Loper Bright multiple times, which means either Jordan was so confident of the Supreme Court decision that he either wrote it in advance or he hurried to stuff Loper Bright into his already-written opinion. Jordan’s opinion also rests heavily on dictionary definitions rather than expertise from the Department of Labor, which issued the rule. So now, the rule that would have made 4 million more Texas workers eligible for overtime, and thus more pay, is blocked thanks to a hurried read of a SCOTUS opinion and Webster’s Dictionary. 

What this mean is that anytime a business doesn’t like a federal rule, it can just sue. It promises to be a free-for-all. Three hospitals in New Jersey sued HHS the day Loper Bright came down, saying the agency’s interpretation of a statute governing Medicare reimbursement is unlawful. In another case, filed before Loper Bright, a trucking company challenging the Biden administration’s rule that addressed misclassification of independent contractors filed a memorandum on July 2 arguing that Loper Bright means the court should not defer to the Department of Labor’s interpretation of the law. The next day, Trump appointee Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas enjoined enforcement of the Biden administration’s rule prohibiting non-compete agreements but limited the injunction to the plaintiffs, which are various pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce. 

[...]

Bigotry from the bench

Unsurprisingly, much of the assault on administration rules relates to any regulation that would protect transgender people. Four days after Loper Bright was handed down, another Trump appointee, Judge John W. Broomes in Kansas, enjoined the Department of Education from enforcing its Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs rule in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming. The Department of Education spent two years finalizing the rule, which would have prohibited discrimination based on gender identity under Title IX.  The unofficial text of the rule, which runs 1,577 pages with supporting material, is jam-packed with legal analysis. Hundreds of pages are spent explaining how the DOE considered and addressed public comments and the document details the mental health impact of discrimination against LGBTQ students. 

Broomes’s expertise is in natural resource law, a background that does not lend itself to a detailed understanding of Title IX, sex discrimination, or gender identity. But none of that matters. His opinion sneers about “self-professed and potentially ever-changing gender identity” and insists that things like using correct pronouns for students and allowing them to use the bathroom that conforms with their gender identity is an issue of “vast economic” significance. Given that the only costs of the rule are things like updated administrative guidance and perhaps hiring additional Title IX staff, the idea it is a vast economic question is, to put it politely, a reach. Instead, Broomes sided with the conservative plaintiffs, including Moms for Liberty and an Oklahoma student who asserted that using the correct pronouns for other students violated her religious beliefs. Because of this mix of conservative state litigants, private anti-trans groups, and an Oklahoma student, the extent of Broomes’s injunction is even weirder than the patchwork blocking of the HHS rule.

Besides blocking the rule entirely in four states, the rule is also blocked for the schools attended by the members of two private plaintiffs, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United, and all schools attended by the children of members of Moms for Liberty. So now, if you are a transgender student unlucky enough to attend school anywhere in the country where a child of a Moms for Liberty student also attends, you’re out of luck. If your school is free of children of book-banners, you get the protection of the federal rule — unless you live in Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming, in which case it doesn’t matter what school you go to.  Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a good rundown of not just how the courts are sledgehammering LGBTQ rights, but also how having courts, rather than regulators, make these decisions results in an uneven patchwork of rulings over a Health and Human Services rule that prohibited health care providers from discriminating based on gender identity. Only five days after Loper Bright was issued, three separate federal courts issued rulings blocking parts of the HHS rule. There’s no chance that William Jung, a Trump appointee to the federal district court for the Middle District of Florida, hadn’t already written most of his decision before Loper Bright was issued, but the case gave him far more ammunition. Fung’s ruling in Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services blocked part of the Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities rule from going into effect — but only in Florida. 

The Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling by the judicial activist MAGA Majority on the Supreme Court is having devastating consequences.

[the-cimmerians]

A federal judge in Texas recently blocked a new Federal Trade Commission rule that would have prohibited new employee non-compete agreements starting September 4. Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas ruled on August 20 that the FTC lacked the power to prevent employers from requiring even entry-level fast food workers to enter into really stupid contracts that prohibit them from getting better jobs at competing businesses. And maybe, given recent Supreme Court rulings, the FTC has no power to regulate anything at all, you never know.

Noncompete agreements were supposedly needed to keep executives and industrial secret-havers from stealing important “trade secrets” — like “Arby’s Arby-Q barbecue sandwiches contain no more than 30 percent roadkill” — and giving them to competing businesses. But for workers below the management level, the agreements all too frequently suppressed wages and kept people from changing jobs or starting their own businesses. That’s why Joe Biden started calling for an end to the damn things since his 2023 State of the Union address.

Backers of the FTC rule argued that existing intellectual property laws do a fine job of protecting genuine trade secrets, and that for the vast majority of folks, noncompete agreements amounted to cartel-style barriers to competition. The agency estimated the rule could potentially increase wages by as much as $488 billion over the next decade, amounting to a $524 annual wage increase for the average worker.

But businesses of all sorts, mostly Big, and the US Chamber of Commerce objected, arguing that stifling competition is the American way, and that the FTC has no business interfering with how they break their workers’ spirits and keep wages down. Judge Brown held that the FTC “exceeded its statutory authority,” that the rule was “arbitrary and capricious,” an attitude that is reserved solely for petty dictator jackwad bosses, and that the rule would “cause irreparable harm” to said jackwad plaintiffs.

When the rule was introduced in April, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan argued that the “freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy,” and that noncompete agreements unfairly limited workers’ freedom to seek higher wages and better work conditions, and that noncompetes were bad for business too, “depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand.”

The ruling is pretty much guaranteed to go to the US Supreme Court, because in July, a different federal judge in Pennsylvania upheld the FTC rule, noting in that case that “The FTC's substantive rulemaking authority has been confirmed by circuit courts interpreting the FTC Act, as well as by Congress when it enacted its 1975 and 1980 Amendments to the Act,” which sounds convincing enough until you remember that was a long time ago and the Supreme Court now believes businesses can do almost anything they want.

If we’re lucky, the case may eventually be resolved without the Supremes deciding that indentured servitude is also legal again.

[mariacallous]

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in a challenge to abortion pill access across the country, including in states where abortion is legal. The stakes for abortion rights are sky-high, and the case is the most consequential battle over reproductive health care access since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

At the center of this fight is mifepristone, a pill that blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy. The drug has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for more than two decades, and it’s used to treat some patients with Cushing’s syndrome, as well as endometriosis and uterine fibroids. But its primary use is the one contested now—mifepristone is the first of two pills taken in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy for a standard medication abortion, along with the drug misoprostol.

If the justices side with the antiabortion activists seeking to limit access to mifepristone, it could upend nationwide access to the most common form of abortion care. A ruling that invalidates mifepristone’s approval would open the door for any judge to reverse the FDA approval of any drug, especially ones sometimes seen as controversial, such as HIV drugs and hormonal birth control. It could also have a chilling effect on the development of new drugs, making companies wary of investing research into medicines that could later be pulled from the market.

Pills are now the leading abortion method in the US, and their popularity has spiked in recent years. More than six in 10 abortions in 2023 were carried out via medication, according to new data from the Guttmacher Institute. Since rules around telehealth were relaxed during the Covid-19 pandemic, many patients seeking medication abortions have relied on virtual clinics, which send abortion pills by mail. And it keeps getting more popular: Hey Jane, a prominent telemedicine provider, saw demand increase 73 percent from 2022 to 2023. It recorded another 28 percent spike comparing data from January 2023 to January 2024.

“Telemedicine abortion is too effective to not be in the targets of antiabortion folks,” says Julie F. Kay, a longtime reproductive rights lawyer and director of the advocacy group Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine.

Tomorrow’s argument comes after a long, tangled series of legal disputes in lower courts. The Supreme Court will be hearing two cases consolidated together, including FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, in which a coalition of antiabortion activists filed a suit challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, asking for it to be removed from the market. The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing Christian law firm that often takes politically charged cases.

Despite decades of scientific consensus on the drug’s safety record, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has alleged that mifepristone is dangerous to women and leads to emergency room visits. A 2021 study cited by the plaintiffs to back up their claims was retracted in February after an independent review found that its authors came to inaccurate conclusions.

In April 2023, the Trump-appointed judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary ruling on the FDA case invalidating the agency’s approval of mifepristone. The ruling sent shock waves far beyond the reproductive-rights world, as it had major implications for the entire pharmaceutical industry, as well as the FDA itself; the ruling suggested that the courts could revoke a drug’s approval even after decades on the market.

The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed Kacsmaryk’s decision a week later, allowing the drug to remain on the market, but undid FDA decisions in recent years that made mifepristone easier to prescribe and obtain. That decision limited the time frame in which it can be taken to the first seven weeks of pregnancy and put telemedicine access, as well as access to the generic version of the drug in jeopardy.

Following the 5th Circuit ruling, the FDA and Danco Laboratories sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, asking the justices to preserve access until it could hear the case. In its legal filing, Danco aptly described the situation as “regulatory chaos.”

SCOTUS issued a temporary stay, maintaining the status quo; the court ultimately decided to take up the case in December 2023.

As all this was unfolding, pro-abortion-rights states across the country were passing what are known as shield laws, which protect medical practitioners who offer abortion care to pregnant patients in states where abortion is banned. This has allowed some providers, including the longtime medication-abortion-advocacy group Aid Access, to mail abortion pills to people who requested them in states like Louisiana and Arkansas.

Though the oral arguments before the Supreme Court begin on Tuesday, it will likely be months before a ruling. Court watchers suspect a decision may be handed down in June. With the US presidential election in the fall, the ruling may become a major campaign issue, especially as abortion access helped galvanize voters in the 2022 midterms.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the plaintiffs that mifepristone should be taken off the market, some in the pharmaceutical industry worry that it will undermine the authority of the FDA, the agency tasked with reviewing and approving drugs based on their safety and efficacy.

“This case isn't about mifepristone,” says Elizabeth Jeffords, CEO of Iolyx Therapeutics, a company developing drugs for immune and eye diseases. Jeffords is a signatory on an amicus brief filed in April 2023 that brought together 350 pharmaceutical companies, executives, and investors to challenge the Texas district court’s ruling.

“This case could have easily been about minoxidil for hair loss. It could have been about Mylotarg for cancer. It could have been about measles vaccines,” Jeffords says. “This is about whether or not the FDA is allowed to be the scientific arbiter of what is good and safe for patients.”

Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on abortion on the law, doesn’t think it’s likely that the court will revoke mifepristone’s approval entirely. Instead, she sees two possible outcomes. The Supreme Court could dismiss the case or could undo the FDA’s decision in 2023 to permanently remove the in-person dispensing requirement and allow abortion by telehealth. “This would be an even more narrow decision than what the 5th Circuit did, but it would still be pretty devastating to abortion access,” she says.

The Supreme Court could also decide that the plaintiffs lack a right to bring the case to court, says David Cohen, a professor of law at Drexel University whose expertise is in constitutional law and gender issues. “This case could get kicked out on standing, meaning that the plaintiffs aren't the right people to bring this case,” he says. “If most of the questions are about standing, that will give you a sense that that's what the justices are concerned about.”

As the current Supreme Court is considered virulently antiabortion, reproductive-health-care workers are already preparing for the worst. Some telehealth providers have already floated a backup plan: offering misoprostol-only medication abortions. This is less than ideal, as the combination of pills is the current standard of care and offers the best results; misoprostol on its own can cause additional cramping and nausea. For some providers who may have to choose between misoprostol-only or nothing, it’s better than nothing.

Abortion-rights activists have no plans to give up on telehealth abortions, regardless of the outcome of this particular case. “Let us be clear, Hey Jane will not stop delivering telemedicine abortion care, regardless of the outcome of this case,” says Hey Jane’s CEO and cofounder, Kiki Freedman.

“They’re not going to stuff the genie back in the bottle,” Kay says.

[profeminist]

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily blocked lower court rulings that imposed tighter restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.

U.S. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. Northern District of Texas suspended the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone last week.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked that part of Kacsmaryk’s order and kept the FDA approval in place. But the appeals court temporarily re-imposed tighter restrictions on how mifepristone is used and distributed, which would make it more difficult for women to access the drug."

Read the full piece here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/14/supreme-court-temporarily-blocks-abortion-pill-restrictions.html

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Emily Yoffe

Published: Jun 11, 2024

Eithan Haim, 34, is at the beginning of his career as a surgeon. He and his wife are expecting their first child in the fall. And now he is facing a four-count federal felony indictment for blowing the whistle on Texas Children’s Hospital, where he worked while a resident. 

At TCH, he discovered the hospital was secretly continuing gender transition treatments on minors—including hormonal intervention on patients as young as 11 years old—after publicly declaring, in March of 2022, it would no longer provide such services.

The hospital unwillingly backed away from the treatments under pressure from the Texas governor and attorney general. But Haim found not only were the treatments continuing—the program appeared to be expanding. He recorded several online presentations by medical staff encouraging the transition of children—one social worker described how she deliberately did not make note of such treatment in the medical charts of patients to avoid leaving a paper trail. Haim told me, “They were talking publicly about how they were concealing what they were doing. You can’t take care of your patient without trust. For me as a doctor, to not do something about this was unconscionable.”

Haim, like a growing number of medical professionals around the world, had grave doubts about the safety and efficacy of the explosively growing business of youth gender transition medicine. When he looked into it, he found that children distressed about their biological sex often had multiple mental health challenges—conditions that were being ignored in the rush to put vulnerable young people on hormones, and even to perform surgical interventions. These treatments are profoundly life-altering, with a high risk of rendering a young person sterile. In the last few years, a growing number of countries have investigated these treatments for young people, found the evidence wanting, and have effectively banned interventions such as puberty blockers—drugs that prevent children from entering puberty.

Haim felt he had to act, but he knew the career risks of speaking out could be enormous. He contacted conservative journalist Christopher Rufo, who published an exposé without naming Haim. Before giving Rufo evidence that puberty blockers were still being surgically implanted in young patients, Haim made sure the patient’s names and other identifying information were redacted. This was both to protect patient privacy, and himself from violating the law known as HIPAA, which protects individual patient identities while also allowing various uses of medical information. The story Haim gave to Rufo was published May 16, 2023. The next day, the Texas legislature voted to ban the medical gender transition of minors.

Haim says there was no immediate aftermath: “Everything went quiet. I was anonymous and went on with my life.” Then June 23 of last year, the day Haim was to graduate from his residency, two federal agents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed up at his house to have a little chat. Haim’s wife, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, a different division of the U.S. Attorney’s office than the one that has indicted her husband, advised him not to talk. 

As Haim later wrote in City Journal, “Before leaving, they handed me a letter revealing that I was a ‘potential target’ of an investigation involving alleged violation of federal criminal law related to medical records.” Haim then went public about the threat facing him in an interview with Rufo. (The U.S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas did not respond to a request for comment.)

Haim was indicted last week, but, as of this writing, he and his attorneys do not yet know the precise nature of the charges. One of his lawyers, Mark Lytle, told me it’s very unusual to bring felony charges for an alleged HIPAA violation unless there is a significant underlying crime, such as a hospital clerk selling a celebrity’s medical records. He said the indictment of Haim seems politically motivated. “The government is entering into the town square on the culture wars and didn’t like what Eithan had to say,” said Lytle. “I think they are looking to make an example of him.” Haim is raising money for his legal fees through this GiveSendGo account.

Haim told me despite the peril he is now facing he has no regrets about blowing the whistle and is committed to fighting the federal charges. He said, “If we don’t fight back, what world are we delivering our children into?”

--

[madamepestilence]

USA: VOTE IN YOUR 2024 PRIMARY ELECTION NOW

Heya folks, if you live in the US, your time to vote is coming up NOW

You may be recommended to vote Uncommitted to show you don't support Biden, but there's a MUCH better alternative! Primary elections determine what presidents will be eligible for ballot during the presidential election!

Get Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. on your presidential ballots for November by voting for Cornel West (write it specifically as Cornel West, don't include his title) in your primary elections!

Unfamiliar with Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D.? As a TLDR, Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. is the most vocal presidential candidate speaking explicitly for a free Palestine, not a false, "two-state," solution, and is seeking to significantly improve the quality of life for Americans, and is a real socialist philosopher, unlike poseur Bernie Sanders.

Learn more here: A video essay I made about the 2024 US election, a detailed Tumblr thread I made about it, Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D.'s official presidential platform

Note: Dr. Jill Stein is just a backup - please vote for Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D.. Claudia de la Cruz is not a viable option, as information has come out that her party, the PSL, has a Conservative 5th Column, and has frequent discrimination issues.

Upcoming voting dates:

(Includes US territories and abroad. Listed alphabetically.)

Primary Elections

Caucus Election? Check follow up post.

Alabama (D/R): Mar 5 Alaska (D): Apr 6 Arizona (D/R): Mar 19 Arkansas (D/R): Mar 5 California (D/R): Mar 5 Colorado (D/R): Mar 5 Connecticut (D/R): Apr 2 Delaware (D/R): Apr 2 Democrats Abroad: Mar 12 District of Columbia (D): Jun 4 District of Columbia (R): Mar 3 Florida (D/R): Mar 19 Georgia (D/R): Mar 12 Illinois (D/R): Mar 19 Indiana (D/R): May 7 Kansas (D/R): Mar 19 Kentucky (D/R): May 21 Louisiana (D/R): Mar 23 Maine (D/R): Mar 5 Maryland (D/R): May 14 Massachusetts (D/R): Mar 5 Michigan (D/R): Feb 27 Minnesota (D/R): Mar 5 Mississippi (D/R): Mar 12 Missouri (D): Mar 23 Montana (D/R): Jun 4 Nebraska (D/R): May 14 New Hampshire (D/R): Jan 23 New Jersey (D/R): Jun 4 New Mexico (D/R): Jun 4 New York (D/R): Apr Nevada (D): Feb 6 North Carolina (D/R): Mar 5 North Dakota (D): Mar 30 Northern Mariana (D): Mar 12 Ohio (D/R): Mar 19 Oklahoma (D/R): Mar 5 Oregon (D/R): May 21 Pennsylvania (D/R): Apr 23 Puerto Rico (D): Apr 28 Puerto Rico (R): Apr 21 Rhode Island (D/R): Apr 2 South Carolina (D): Feb 3 South Carolina (R): Feb 24 South Dakota (D/R): Jun 4 Tennessee (D/R): Mar 5 Texas (D/R): Mar 5 Utah (D): Mar 5 Vermont (D/R): Mar 5 Virginia (D/R): Mar 5 Washington (D/R): Mar 12 West Virginia (D/R): May 14 Wisconsin (D/R): Apr 2

[eretzyisrael]

by Adam Kredo

A U.S. district court rejected the Biden administration’s bid to dismiss a landmark lawsuit alleging it engaged in an "illegal and dangerous $1.5 billion terrorism subsidy program for the Palestinians."

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled on Friday that the lawsuit brought by victims of Palestinian terrorism can proceed, marking the second time the Biden administration’s motion to dismiss the case has been rejected. The court, in its latest decision, said there is evidence the Biden administration continued awarding taxpayer cash to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—the leading aid organization in Gaza—even after Congress blocked funding to that group due to its support for Hamas’s military infrastructure.

The lawsuit, originally filed in December 2022 by American victims of Palestinian terror attacks and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), alleges the Biden administration violated federal law when it restarted aid to the Palestinians, including for programs in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. This money, they argue, subsidized terrorism and contributed to the Palestinian government’s "pay to slay" program, which provides imprisoned terrorists and their families with monthly stipends.

The latest decision paves the way for the case to "move forward, tearing away the veil from the Biden Administration’s illegal and dangerous $1.5 billion terrorism subsidy program for the Palestinians," America First Legal, a watchdog group handling the lawsuit on behalf of terror victims, said in a summary of the case provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

"This administration has been illegally funding terrorism by providing taxpayer dollars to Palestinian terrorists who want to bring harm to American and Israeli interests,"  said Rep. Jackson. "This critical decision will help to hold the Biden administration accountable and ensure that the national security of the United States and Israel is prioritized over the illegal funding of terrorism with American taxpayer dollars."

The court agreed that America First Legal provided sufficient evidence that the Biden administration’s financial support for UNRWA "is undiminished," even after Congress outlawed funding to the group following revelations its employees participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. UNRWA facilities have also been used as Hamas command centers, and weapons stockpiles have repeatedly been discovered in the agency’s buildings.

The Biden administration attempted to argue that the plaintiff’s use of "Trump policies" in its initial suit was "amorpheous [sic] or indeterminate," but the court also rejected this claim, saying the suit clearly demonstrates that aid to both the Palestinians and UNRWA was frozen during the previous administration and subsequently restarted when President Joe Biden took office.

The lawsuit "makes that distinction clear," the court determined, adding that the Biden administration’s "decision to resume those two sources of funding each constitute discrete and final agency actions."

Reed Rubinstein, America First Legal’s senior vice president, said the latest ruling indicates the Biden administration knew it was violating the law by sending aid to the Palestinians but moved forward with this policy anyway.

[beardedmrbean]

The U.S. Department of Justice said an illegal immigrant has reached an agreement to plead guilty to charges related to stealing a U.S. citizen's identity to vote in multiple elections and fraudulently obtain an American passport. 

Angelica Maria Francisco, a 42-year-old undocumented individual who most recently resided in Russellville, Alabama, is facing a nine-count information filed in federal court for false claims of citizenship in connection with voting, false statements in application for a United States passport, use of a United States passport obtained by false statements, and aggravated identity theft.  

A plea agreement was filed as well, indicating that Francisco has agreed to plead guilty to all nine counts, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Prim F. Escalona and Resident Agent in Charge Joseph R. Wysowaty of the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Atlanta Resident Office announced on Thursday. 

Francisco is accused of assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen in or around 2011. Prosecutors say she used the false identity to get an American passport in 2011. She then allegedly used the passport to travel to and from her native Guatemala in 2012, 2015 and 2018. Using the same identity, she allegedly also registered to vote in Alabama in 2016, before voting in the 2016 and 2020 primary and general elections.

In 2021, Francisco allegedly used the same false identity to apply for and receive a renewed passport, which she used to travel to and from Guatemala in 2022.

The State Department's Diplomatic Security Service investigated the case, with assistance from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the East Metro Area Crime Center, and the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. 

"I have been very clear that a top priority of this Office is ensuring only eligible American citizens are voting in Alabama elections," Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement. "I want to thank the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Alabama for their diligent efforts investigating and charging this individual. We will continue to assist law enforcement in every way possible as they prosecute individuals who vote illegally in Alabama elections to the fullest extent of the law." 

Allen, a Republican, has made election integrity a top priority this cycle and previously sounded the alarm to Fox News Digital about how state agencies receiving federal funding are required under Executive Order 14019 to send out voter registration information to anyone who comes into contact with those agencies without any verification of citizenship. President Biden signed the order in 2021 as a way of "promoting access to voting," but Republicans argue that its broad interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 essentially mobilizes the federal government apparatus to become voter registration agencies. 

At the Republican National Convention in July, Allen told Fox News Digital that he had also spoken with House Speaker Mike Johnson regarding a piece of legislation called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which aims to require states to obtain proof of citizenship – in person – when registering an individual to vote and require states to remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls. 

Last month, prominent conservative Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed for the SAVE Act to be attached to a spending bill extension to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. 

"Punting new government spending into 2025 when we have a new President and attaching the SAVE Act ensures House Republicans avoid a Biden-Harris lame duck omnibus and secures our elections at the same time," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said in a statement on Friday. "The Senate can either ensure only eligible American citizens are voting in our elections – or shut down the government. To me, it’s a no-brainer."

[follow-up-news]

A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new government rule that would slash credit card late-payment charges, a centerpiece of the Biden administration's efforts to clamp down on "junk" fees.   Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Friday granted an injunction sought by the banking industry and other business interests to freeze the restrictions, which were scheduled to take effect on May 14. In his ruling, Pittman cited a 2022 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that found that funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the federal agency set to enforce the credit card rule, is unconstitutional.  The regulations, adopted by the CFPB in March, seek to cap late fees for credit card payments at $8, compared with current late fees of $30 or more. Although a bane for consumers, the fees generate about $9 billion a year for card issuers, according to the agency. After the CFPB on March 5 announced the ban on what it called "excessive" credit card late fees, the American Bankers Association (ABA) and U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a legal challenge.  The ABA, an industry trade group, applauded Pittman's decision. "This injunction will spare banks from having to immediately comply with a rule that clearly exceeds the CFPB's statutory authority and will lead to more late payments, lower credit scores, increased debt, reduced credit access and higher APRs for all consumers — including the vast majority of card holders who pay on time each month," ABA CEO Rob Nichols said in a statement.  Maria Monaghan, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center counsel, echoed the sentiment, called the ruling "a major win for responsible consumers who pay their credit card bills on time and businesses that want to provide affordable credit."  Consumer groups blasted the decision, saying it will hurt credit card users across the U.S. "In their latest in a stack of lawsuits designed to pad record corporate profits at the expense of everyone else, the U.S. Chamber got its way for now, ensuring families get price-gouged a little longer with credit card late fees as high as $41," Liz Zelnick of Accountable.US, a nonpartisan advocacy group, said in a statement. "The U.S. Chamber and the big banks they represent have corrupted our judicial system by venue shopping in courtrooms of least resistance, going out of their way to avoid having their lawsuit heard by a fair and neutral federal judge." According to consumer advocates that support the CFPB's late-fee rule, credit card issuers hit customers with $14 billion in late-payment charges in 2019, accounting for well over half their fee revenue that year. Financial industry critics say such late fees target low- and moderate-income consumers, in particular people of color. Despite Pittman's stay on Friday, analysts said the legal fight over late fees is likely to continue, with the case possibly heading to the Supreme Court. 

[nationallawreview]

Update on FTC Noncompete Ban: Court Challenges Begin

On April ­­23 we reported on the Federal Trade Commission’s vote to ban almost all non-competition agreements in the United States. Within hours of that vote, Ryan LLC, a global tax consulting firm headquartered in Dallas, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas challenging the FTC’s authority to issue such a rule. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

Elon Musk is busy. No, not because he’s attending to any of his multibillion-dollar companies. For Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink, he’s full of wild promises with very little actual progress. But what Musk is really spending time on these days is attacking the core foundations of American democracy on multiple fronts. There’s his thus-far successful effort to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). There’s his political action committee, America PAC, which pretends to help register people to vote but is just hoovering up voter data to give to the Trump campaign. And there’s his lawsuit seeking to force companies to advertise on X, despite the fact advertisers generally do not want their ads running next to the Nazi content X is full of now. All of these efforts have the potential to succeed because the federal courts are broken, and the administrative state is dying a slow and painful death. 

Immiserating workers

Let’s start with the NLRB. It’s no surprise that Musk is no friend to labor. He doesn’t believe in unions, saying that they create “a lords and peasants sort of thing,” whatever that means. When workers at his Fremont, California, plant began an organizing campaign, he tweeted that they would lose their stock options if they joined the union. This sort of threat is extremely illegal, and the NLRB sided with the workers who brought multiple unfair labor practices charges against Tesla. Tesla also prohibited workers from wearing t-shirts with union insignias, even though the right to wear pro-union clothing at work has been a legally protected activity for several decades. Then, of course, there’s the class-action lawsuit in California state court, where almost 6,000 Black workers at the Fremont factory recently got the right to sue Tesla for ignoring massive racism at that plant. How massive? Nooses at the workstations of Black workers massive.  [...]

A scam PAC

America PAC purports to help people register to vote. If you live in a state that isn’t a swing state, that’s what the PAC’s website does — sends you over to your state’s voter registration page. But if you live somewhere in play this November, the America PAC website asks you for detailed personal information, including things utterly unrelated to voter eligibility, like your cellphone number. After all that is entered, the PAC doesn’t register you at all. It doesn’t even send the user to their state registration website. It just displays a “thank you” page.  So, swing state voters may think they’re registering, but they’re not. Instead, they’ve handed over their data to a PAC that is coordinating with the Trump campaign. While PACs are generally not allowed to work directly with campaigns, America PAC is a door-to-door canvassing group, and those, inexplicably, can work hand in hand with a candidate. However, pretending to register people to vote is probably a bridge too far.

[...]

Suing advertisers

Mr. Free Speech is also availing himself of the courts to try to force companies to advertise on X. On Tuesday, X filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), an advertising trade group, in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas. Why Wichita Falls, some 300 miles from Austin, where Tesla is located? Because the Northern District of Texas enthusiastically embraces judge shopping, and every case in Wichita Falls goes to Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee who routinely tries to throw out the whole of the Affordable Care Act and is a reliable vote for anything conservatives want. (The WFA announced Thursday that it’s shutting down because it does not have the financial resources to fight X in court.) Musk already has another case before Reed O’Connor on a similarly twisted legal theory.

Late last year, X sued Media Matters in O’Connor’s court after Media Matters accurately pointed out that ads were appearing next to the Nazi and white nationalist content that is rife on X now. That case shouldn’t exist, period, and it especially shouldn’t be in O’Connor’s courtroom. As Mike Masnick pointed out over at Techdirt, X is incorporated in Nevada, with headquarters in California. Media Matters is in DC, and the Media Matters writer named in the suit is in Maryland. The only connection to Texas is that Reed O’Connor is very friendly to conservatives.

Elon Musk is selling out to enemies of America who seek to erode our democracy.

[frithwontdie]

Historical Fun Facts #5

Did Y'all know, that jews were almost expelled from Union military districts in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi during the American Civil War? Yes, it almost happened.

On December 17, 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant lashes out at Jewish cotton speculators, who he believed the driving force behind the black market for cotton. Which he was trying to surpress.

Grant was extremely angry about the unscrupulous activities of jewish profiteers who were undercutting Union efforts to suppress the black market in Southern cotton. After learning that his own father had teamed up with three Jewish traders from Cincinnati in a scheme to procure cotton at a discount, the general lashed out in anger, and issued General Order No. 11 expelling all Jews, which he issued from his headquarters at Oxford, Mississippi. Which this order expelled all jews from the territory he commanded, which was comprised of portions of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and Union-controlled areas of northern Mississippi, "within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order."

Prussian-born Jewish immigrant Cesar J. Kaskel from Paducah Kentucky, received his later to leave his home and business behind. He telegrammed Lincoln on behalf of a group of Jewish merchants from Paducah, condemning the order as "the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it... [it would] place us...as outlaws before the world. We respectfully ask your immediate attention to this enormous outrage on all law and humanity....” Other telegrams were sent to President Lincoln from Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. This stirred the extremely powerful jews in the North to protest to President Abraham Lincoln, who promptly directed Grant to rescind the order. Then Grant later made an apology to the Jews.

Yet what Grant wrote in his General Order No. 11, speaking about how jews cared only about making a profit, and were dishonest and swindling every gentile that they did business with.

One recorded Example of shady dealings:

A swarm of Jews, within the last ten years, has settled in nearly every southern town, many of them men with no character, opening cheap clothing and trinket shops; ruining or driving out of business, many of the old retailers, and engaging in an unlawful trade with the simple negroes, which is found very profitable.

Here is the text of Grant's General Order No. 11. Judge for yourselves whether the activities of the jews seem familiar:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department [of the Tennessee] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order. Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people [Jews] be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

A military comrade, General James H. Wilson, later suggested that the order was related to Grant's difficulties with his own father, Jesse Root Grant. He recounted:

Quote:

"He [Jesse Grant] was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line."

[carriesthewind]

This ChatGPT fuckery case is so interesting. Thank you for writing it up and making it more understandable to the general public. I know it's entirely speculation but do you think that this has potential to set the tone for AI tools in the legal profession (ie no one credible uses them, all use has to be disclosed and will weaken your arguments, etc) or that it will be focused primarily on the behaviour of individuals specifically and their lack/failure of professional responsibility?

You are welcome! And I don't know? There was federal judge in Texas who just issued a requirement that "All attorneys and pro se litigants appearing before the Court must, together with their notice of appearance, file on the docket a certificate attesting either that no portion of any filing will be drafted by generative artificial intelligence (such as ChatGPT, Harvey.AI, or Google Bard) or that any language drafted by generative artificial intelligence will be checked for accuracy, using print reporters or traditional legal databases, by a human being." (This is a specific rule for filings in his courtroom - judges are allowed to make these specific rules. So this is only for a requirement for people specifically appearing in front of Judge Brantley Starr in the Northern District of Texas.) Based on the timing, a lot of the reporting I've seen has linked it to the New York case I've been discussing, but (at least as far as I have seen) there hasn't been any confirmation from the judge that the two are linked.

I think this particular case appears to be so extremely bad in terms of existing professional responsibility that it could be fairly easy for "AI" proponents to brush it aside? Because most of the proponents were already including disclaimers of, "well of course you have to double check," and "it sometimes makes things up." As I said in another post - the underlying ethics issues would be the same if they had gotten the brief and the "opinions" by asking some random dude in the street. Going back to that certificate required by the Texas judge - of course an attorney should understand that they are responsible for the contents of any filing they sign and submit to the court! That's already part of the rules!

On the other hand, it's gotten so much widespread bad press that it could possibly spook some people/firms who might have otherwise been willing to give it a try?

On the third hand, as I understand it, there are a lot of products being marketed as "AI" right now that do very different things. I think chatbots and "AI" have gotten somewhat conflated in the public discourse recently, but as I understand it, chatbots are just one small part of a wide variety of products and tools that are being marketed as "AI."

Someone who works in a private firm or in the judiciary might have a different perspective/more insight on this front. From my perspective, I'm just watching to see how it plays out.

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year 2024, Part III (The Lists)

Winged Wheel

Dusted’s writers picked two for the mid-year exchange, but any of them could easily reel off a dozen or more other favorites.  Find out what else they liked in this collection of lists. 

If you haven’t read Part I or Part II yet, check them out. 

Christian Carey

Arooj Aftab —  Night Reign (Verve)

Richard Baker —  The Tyranny of Fun (NMC)

Kyle Bruckman —  Of Rivers (New Focus)

Madi Diaz —  Weird Feeling (Anti)

Julia Holter —  Something in the Room She Moves (Domino)

Hurray for the Riff Raff —  The Past is Still Alive (Nonesuch)

Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, Tyshawn Sorey —  Compassion (ECM)

Kali Malone —  All Life Long (Ideologic Organ)

Rosali — Bite Down (Merge)

Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion —  Rectangles and Circumstance (Nonesuch)

Ches Smith —  Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic)

Waxahatchee —  Tigers Blood (Anti)

Tim Clarke

DIIV — Frog In Boiling Water (Fantasy)

Loma — How Will I Live Without A Body? (Sub Pop)

Jessica Pratt — Here in the Pitch (City Slang)

Jon Mckiel — Hex (You’ve Changed)

Winged Wheel — Big Hotel (12XU)

Corridor — Mimi (Sub Pop)

English Teacher — This Could Be Texas (Island)

Helado Negro — Phasor (4AD)

Ty Segall — Three Bells (Drag City)

The Smile — Wall of Eyes (XL)

Andrew Forell

Arab Strap — I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍 (Rock Action)

Camera Obscura — Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)

Daryl Groetsch — Above the Shore (self-released)

Drahla — angeltape (Captured Tracks)

Geotic — The Anchorite (Basement’s Basement)

Iceboy Violet, Nueen — You Said You’d Hold my Hand Through the Fire (Hyperdub)

Kim Gordon — The Collective (Matador)

Mick Harvey — Five Ways to Say Goodbye (Mute)

Sandwell District — Where Next? (Point of Departure)

Umbrellas — Fairweather Friend (Slumberland)

Yosa Peit — Gutbuster (Fire)

Reissues:

Brion Gysin — Junk (WEWANTSOUNDS)

These Immortal Souls — Get Lost (Don’t Lie!) Mute

Bryon Hayes

Rosali – Bite Down (Merge)

Winged Wheel – Big Hotel (12xU)

Gastr Del Sol – We Have Dozens of Titles (Drag City)

Beings – There is a Garden (No Quarter)

Ambarchi Berthling Werliin – Dusted II (Drag City)

Sunburned Hand of the Man – Nimbus (Three Lobed)

Water Damage – In E (12xU)

Dun-Dun Band – Pita Parka Pt. 1: Xam Egdub (Ansible Editions)

Gerycz Powers Rolin – Activator (12xU)

Magic Tuber String Band – Needlefall (Thrill Jockey)

Alex Johnson

Rosali — Bite Down (Merge)

RE Seraphin —  Fool’s Mate (Take A Turn/Safe Suburban Home)

Uranium Club —  Infants Under the Bulb (Static Shock)

The Spatulas —  Beehive Mind (Post Present Medium)

Yohei —  Echo You Know (Perpetual Doom)

Pardoner —  Paranoid in Hell (Convulse)

NYSSA —  Shake Me Where I’m Foolish (Six Shooter)

Nowhere Flower —  Ruts the Place (Radical Documents)

Sheer Mag —  Playing Favorites (Third Man)

Cindy Lee —  Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)

Oren Ambachi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werlin —  Ghosted II (Drag City)

Winged Wheel —  Big Hotel (12XU)

Jennifer Kelly

Rosali—Bite Down (Merge)

Mdou Moctar—Funeral for Justice (Matador)

Mary Timony—Untame the Tiger (Merge)

Myriam Gendron—Mayday (Thrill Jockey)

Lupa Citto—S-T (12XU)

James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg—All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors)

Rail Band—S-T (Mississippi)

Winged Wheel—Big Hotel (12XU)

Six Organs of Admittance—Time is Glass (Drag City)

Split System—Vol. 2 (Goner)

Ian Mathers

The Body & Dis Fig — Orchards of a Futile Heaven (Thrill Jockey)

Broadcast — Spell Blanket: Collected Demos 2006-2009 (Warp)

Cassandra Jenkins — My Light, My Destroyer (Dead Oceans)

Chelsea Wolfe — She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She (Loma Vista)

Jessica Moss — For UNRWA (Self released)

Laura Masotto — The Spirit of Things (7K!)

loscil // lawrence english — Chroma (Self released)

Myriam Gendron — Mayday (Feeding Tube/Thrill Jockey)

Polar Inertia — Environment Control (Northern Electronics)

Whitelands — Night-bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day (Sonic Cathedral)

Jim Marks

Ben Allison, Steve Cardenas, and Ted Nash — Tell the Birds I Said Hello: The Music of Herbie Nichols (Sonic Camera)

Mary Halvorson — Cloudward (Nonesuch)

Demian Cabaud — Arbol Adentro (Porta Jazz)

Fabiano do Nascimento and Sam Gendel — The Room (Real World)

Francesco Sensi — In Abstracto (WoW)

James Brandon Lewis Quartet — Transfiguration (Intakt)

James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg — All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors)

Juan Pablo Alcazar — Otro Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps (Porta Jazz)

Michele di Toro, Yuri Goloubev, and Hans Mathisen — Trinomics (Calogola)

Tony Moreno Trio — Ballads Volume 1 (Sunnyside)

Patrick Masterson

Cindy Lee — Diamond Jubilee (Realistik)

Chief Keef — Almighty So 2 (43B)

Marika Hackman — Big Sigh (Chrysalis)

Water Damage — In E (12XU)

Oneida — Expensive Air (Joyful Noise)

Winged Wheel — Big Hotel (12XU)

Burial — “Dreamfear / Boy Sent From Above" (XL)

Gouge Away — Deep Sage (Deathwish Inc.)

Blues Ambush — Blues Ambush (Radical Documents)

Tei Shi — Valerie (self-released)

Armand Hammer — BLK LBL (self-released)

Donato Dozzy — Magda (Spazio Disponibile)

Bill Meyer

 أحمد  [Ahmed] —Wood Blues (Astral Spirits)

 أحمد  [Ahmed]—Giant Beauty (Fönstret)

Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet—Four Guitars Live (Palilalia) 

Itasca—Imitation of War (Paradise of Bachelors) 

Lisa Ullen, Heirloom (Fönstret)

Lumpeks—Polonez (Umlaut) 

Matthew Shipp Trio, New Directions in Jazz Piano Trio (ESP-Disk’)

Olivia Block—The Mountains Pass (Black Truffle)

Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin—Ghosted II (Drag City)

Rafael Toral—Spectral Evolution (Moikai) 

The Handover—The Handover (Sublime Frequencies) 

Tomeka Reid Quartet—3x3 (Cuneiform) 

Jonathan Shaw

Bad Breeding—Contempt (Iron Lung)

Fuera de Sektor—Juegos Prohibidos (La Vida Es un Mus)

Cindy Lee—Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)

SUMAC—The Healer (Thrill Jockey)

Thou—Umbilical (Sacred Bones)

VR Sex—“Hard Copy” (Dais)

[mikkeneko]

Apparently before there was a War On Christmas, there was a War Of Thanksgiving. (The Civil War. It was the Civil War.)

Although meant to unify people, the 19th-century campaign to make Thanksgiving a permanent holiday was seen by prominent Southerners as a culture war. They considered it a Northern holiday intended to force New England values on the rest of the country. To them, pumpkin pie, a Yankee food, was a deviously sweet symbol of anti-slavery sentiment. ... Southern leaders attacked Thanksgiving as the North’s attempt to impart Yankee values on the South. Virginians, especially, retaliated against Hale’s campaign. In 1856, the Richmond Whig published a scathing editorial on the District of Columbia’s “repugnant” declaration of thanksgiving, arguing that the holiday did nothing but rob men of a day’s wages and encourage drunkenness. As for the Northerners who started the celebration: “They have crazy society within New England’s limits, where they have been productive of little but mischief—of unadulterated and unmistakable injuries to sound religion, morals, and patriotism.” A few years later, according to historian Melanie Kirkpatrick, Governor Wise of Virginia answered letters from Hale by telling her he wanted nothing to do with “this theatrical national claptrap of Thanksgiving, which has aided other causes in setting thousands of pulpits to preaching ‘Christian politics.’” Wise’s statement directly referred to anti-slavery politics. ... In Texas, Governor Oran Milo Roberts, a former Confederate army officer, refused to declare Thanksgiving a holiday as late as the 1880s. Some Southern governors would follow the annual presidential proclamations, but move the date of Thanksgiving to resist its message of national unity.