#southern legal counsel

[fandomtrumpshate]

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You guys know So Much. We're so lucky you're all so willing to share!

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[thiziri]

The Princess Royal visits South Africa 🇿🇦

Tuesday 21st January

Today, The Princess Royal conducted her first day of engagements in South Africa.

The Princess Royal’s first visit in South Africa was the South African Riding for the Disabled Association (SARDA), which has provided free equine therapy, sport and training to the most vulnerable in society for the last 52 years. Her Royal Highness previously visited the organisation 30 years ago, on 25 November 1994. 

SARDA is the only remaining riding for the disabled training facility of its kind - it has served over 9,500 previously and currently disadvantaged children and their families. 

SARDA scholars have won 6 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze Medals at the Paralympics.  Her Royal Highness is President of the Riding for the Disabled Association, becoming Patron of the RDA in November 1971, and President in March 1986. 

Later, The Princess Royal toured the British High Commission Residence Garden with Mr Leon Kluge, gold winner at the 2024 Chelsea Flower Show with Cape Floral Kingdom, and Mr Bulelani Bashe, Head Horticulturist at Grootbos Foundation.

The Foundation works to conserve the environment of the Cape Floral Kingdom and to develop sustainable livelihoods through ecotourism, education, enterprise and sports development.

Her Royal Highness planted a Princess Anne Rose in the Residence Garden to symbolise the visit.

Wednesday 22nd January

As President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, The Princess Royal began the day at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), where she unveiled the Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial. 

The new memorial, which honours the contribution of South African military labourers in the First World War, is part of the CWGC’s commitment to ensuring all those who died in the two World Wars are commemorated equally.

Following this, Her Royal Highness visited the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. Here, The Princess Royal heard about the life and work of Archbishop Tutu, his role in supporting healing from discrimination and injustice, and how his legacy is being continued through the current work of the Foundation’s programmes.

On a tour of the Museum, The Princess Royal met staff members at stations throughout the ‘Truth to Power: Desmond Tutu & The Churches - In the struggle against apartheid’ exhibition. Her Royal Highness finished the tour by meeting young people and staff who are taking forward Archbishop Tutu’s legacy through the Leaders for Humanity programme.

Later, The Princess visited the Royal Cape Yacht Club, where she learnt about the work of The Royal Cape Sailing Academy, an organisation that empowers young people to development their skills through sailing. 

The Academy teaches young people from some of the most under resourced communities how to sail, thereby developing self-confidence and leadership skills. Her Royal Highness met previous participants from the Cape 2 Rio Race including Jennifer Webb, who was sunk by a whale during the race in 1971.

The Princess Royal also visited the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), where she toured the observatory and had an in-depth look at the McClean Telescope. The SAAO is the South African national centre for optical and infrared astronomy and is the foremost establishment for optical astronomy across the African continent. 

Her Royal Highness met and heard from those who work within the observatory and learnt a little about the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, which SAAO owns and bears operational responsibility for. 

Finally, The Princess Royal visited a Thuthuzela Care (TCC). TCCs are intended to be a safe space for survivors of sexual assault, providing one space where individuals can receive counselling, medical and legal support without having to recount their experience to multiple agencies, thereby avoiding secondary traumatisation. 

Her Royal Highness met the team delivering support in the centre, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

© Royal UK

[the-cimmerians]

Well, here it comes, a filing at the Republican-controlled Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals that could lead to the overturn of the rights to same-sex marriage, birth control, even the right to have same-sexy-sextimes in the privacy of one’s own home, courtesy of Apostolic Christian Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis and her designated-hate-group law firm, Liberty Counsel.

Yes, it’s THAT lady again, the one the hair who’s been pitching one long legal fit since 2015, starting when she refused to sign marriage certificates for gay couples after Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage the law of the land, moaning that it would violate her right to religious expression to have her Godly Christian signature on such sinful paperwork.

The couples sued her for being a flagrant asshole who denied them their rights, and a jury agreed with them. Davis appealed to the Supreme Court, back in the saner days of old (2020 and before), they didn’t want to hear it.

Nevertheless, Justice Clarence “RV” Thomas took the opportunity to write a whole unsolicited statement about how the victim here wasn’t nice couples in love trying to get married like they were legally allowed to do, but poor Kim Davis, because now everybody thinks she’s a bigot instead of decent, good, and honorable, and that makes her sad. How dare Obergefell have not considered the right of Christian moral scolds to butt into everybody’s private life and make scenes, the way God intended?

[ ]

So now Davis and Liberty Counsel have an in, using Thomas’s statement to take their legal spanking to the 6th Circuit as being UGH SO UNFAIR to Davis as an oppressed bigot-American. Also while the 6th Circuit is at it, Davis thinks they should “reconsider all of th[e] Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [v. Connecticut], Lawrence [v. Texas], and Obergefell”, maybe the 6th Circuit could have a talk with the manager?

[ ]

But guffaw, Liberty Counsel is never happy! Not for nothing the Southern Poverty Law Center designates them as a hate group! Their lawyers Mat (one ‘T’) Staver and Matt Barber have opined many times that gay sex is so ew yuck icky that we should all have an entire civil war about it. In 2019 Liberty Counsel was publicly mad that gay people were included in the federal Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, lest you think they aren’t deadly serious about wanting to kill people.

That’s a goal that also tops on Project 2025’s wish list, that plus labeling content with LGBTQ people in it as pornography, making “pornographers” register as sex offenders, and that sex offenders should get the death penalty. And like Davis, Project 2025 would also like to throw out the Comstock Act and have the FBI spend their time searching people’s mail for suspected “abortifacients.”

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

“I’ll say this in no uncertain terms: I have no plans to leave Columbia. If ever I plan to leave Columbia, it will be on my own terms,” Davidai said. “Because, if they can do this to me, one of the most vocal faculty against antisemitism, then imagine what they’re already doing to faculty that are much less vocal.”

Davidai first made headlines in October after delivering a thunderous speech before a crowd of students and others gathered on campus in which he called the school’s president a “coward” for refusing to condemn Hamas apologists and anti-Zionist demonstrations on campus.

In many ways, becoming a public figure has been a detriment. Davidai’s email has been flooded daily with notes from antisemites accusing him of being an “Elder of Zion” and a “genocidal baby killer.” Last month, he discovered that an anonymous group of graduate students had accused him of anti-Palestinian racism and demanded that a professional association of which he is a member publicly censure him.

In Friday’s statement, Davidai said that he has retained counsel and pledged to “fully cooperate” with the university’s investigation.

“At the same time, I will call out Columbia’s bad faith in retaliating against me,” he explained. “An even cursory examination of my advocacy shows the absurdity of this investigation.”

The investigation against Davidai comes amid numerous allegations that since Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, the university has refused to address antisemitic rhetoric and violence on campus and allegedly coddled students engaging in antisemitic behavior.

Last month, a student group, Students Against Antisemitism (SAA), claimed in a lawsuit filed with the help of the StandWithUs Legal Center for Justice that pro-Hamas students beat up five Jewish students in Columbia’s Butler Library and that another attacked a Jewish student with a stick, lacerating his head and breaking his finger.

Following the incidents, pleas for help went unanswered and administrators told Jewish students they could not guarantee their safety while Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held its demonstrations, according to the lawsuit. The school’s powerlessness to prevent anti-Jewish violence was cited as the reason why Students Supporting Israel, a recognized pro-Israel school club, was denied permission to hold an event on self-defense. Events with “buzzwords” such as “Israel” and “Palestine” were forbidden, administrators allegedly said, but SJP continued to host events while no one explained the inconsistency.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mira Lazine at LGBTQ Nation:

Two Christian families in Vermont, alongside the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, are suing the state after it stripped their foster care licenses over their homophobic and transphobic beliefs. “Vermont says they’re unfit to parent any child because of their traditional religious beliefs about human sexuality,” said ADF legal counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse in a press release. “Vermont seems to care little about the needs of vulnerable children, much less the constitutional rights of its citizens. That’s why we’re suing them in federal court.”

The Wuoti and Gantt families filed the lawsuit along with the ADF on Tuesday, initiating a formal complaint against the state.  Vermont changed its policies regarding foster families in recent years to better support LGBTQ+ youth. It requires that foster parents are supportive of young people’s identities – such as properly gendering trans youth or allowing kids to embrace their sexual orientation.  It strictly prohibits “discrimination and bias based on a child or youth’s real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

The lawsuit argues that both families are required by their religion to misgender any foster children, stating that “a person’s sex is binary and fixed by God at conception.” It goes further in arguing that, in the case of the Gantt family, they believe that trans people must detransition and that people should not gender trans people correctly. The lawsuit also claims that Kaitlyn Wuoti had gender dysphoria as a child, leading her to be filled with “compassion” for children. Both Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti believe that they cannot even associate with a Pride parade or those in it because “they convey a message about human sexuality that goes against their faith.”

Two Christian conservative families, the Gantts and the Wuotis-- along with far-right anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom-- are suing the state of Vermont over being prohibited from mistreating LGBTQ+ and trans foster children in their care.

Both the Gantts and Wuotis support the misgendering and forcing detransition of trans foster children, along with opposing LGBTQ+ identity.

[mariacallous]

Mayor Eric Adams’ chief counsel resigned Saturday without advance notice, according to a City Hall spokesperson.

Lisa Zornberg left after a little over a year on the job, while top officials in the administration face multiple federal investigations. Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications, said her departure was effective immediately.

The mayor’s office provided a short statement from Zornberg that offered no explanation as to why she left.

“I am deeply grateful to Mayor Adams for giving me the opportunity to serve the city, and I strongly support the work he has done and continues to do for New Yorkers,” Zornberg said.

The abrupt exit leaves a significant hole in the administration — and draws attention to legal problems surrounding the mayor and his inner circle.

As chief counsel, Zornberg was responsible for defending the mayor amid a federal corruption investigation into his 2021 campaign. She also worked as an adviser on key policy issues, including his response to the migrant crisis.

Her resignation comes two days after NYPD commissioner Edward Caban stepped down, and a week after his phones were seized as part of a separate federal investigation. Other top Adams aides also had their phones taken, including first deputy mayor Sheena Wright, her partner schools chancellor David Banks and deputy mayor for public safety Phil Banks.

Before joining City Hall, Zornberg spent years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is now investigating several city officials. She also worked in white collar defense at a private firm before starting as chief counsel, according to a biography announcing her appointment.

Adams said in a statement that he appreciated the work Zornberg had done.

“These are hard jobs and we don’t expect anyone to stay in them forever,” he said.

He added that other senior members of Zornberg’s team “will remain in their roles to ensure the office continues to fully operate without issue, and we expect to name an acting chief counsel in the coming days.”

Adams tested positive for COVID on Monday, and he has not appeared in person at any public events since. On Thursday he delivered remarks virtually announcing Caban’s resignation.

[carriesthewind]

Want to thank you for explaining the local counsel/who's admitted to which court/pro hac vice thing! Because now I know exactly what is meant when they say that Trump's kind of in a pickle because he can't find a criminal trial lawyer who's admitted to the Southern District of Florida and is willing to represent him, so his civil lawyer is acting as local counsel as a one-off and his other lawyer is representing him in court pro hac vice!

Ha ha! Yes! My secret plan to increase people's background legal knowledge via tumblr drama posts is working! :)

[feministfocus]

The Inspiring Upbringing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

by Sofia Bocchino

Most Americans know the name Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and feminist icon, but not many know how she became the influential judicial figure she will always be remembered as. Ginsburg served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 to 2020, and was the second woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. Growing up in Brooklyn during the 1930s and 40s, she experienced severe adversity from a young age. Her older sister died from meningitis at the age of six, and her mother died from cancer just days before her high school graduation, which she was unable to attend. Ginsburg also endured WWII in her childhood, which was an especially stressful time for her family because they were Jewish. Despite this adversity, Ginsburg excelled in school, and went on to study at Cornell University on a full scholarship. During her time there, she would meet many figures who influenced her future career, including her future husband, Martin Ginsburg, a nationally prominent tax attorney, Vladimir Nabokov, professor of literature and renowned Russian author who influenced her writing, and Robert Cushman, a constitutional lawyer who inspired her to practice law. 

After graduating from Cornell, marrying Martin, having a daughter and spending two years in Oklahoma where her husband was stationed in the army, Ginsburg moved back to Massachusetts and began her legal studies at Harvard Law School. Ginsburg also became the first woman to ever serve on the editorial staff of the Harvard Law Review. However, in the midst of her studies, she had to move with her family to New York City after her husband took a job with a law firm, finishing her studies at Columbia Law School and graduating in 1959. After graduating, she struggled to find employment as a lawyer due to her gender and the fact that she was a mother. It was very rare for a woman to succeed in a law career during this time due to sexism and wage gaps. With the help of her professor from Columbia; however, Ginsburg was able to receive a clerkship under the Southern District of New York. There, she researched Swedish Civil Procedure, and her work was published in a book entitled Civil Procedure in Sweden (1965). Her experience as a clerk landed her the opportunity to work as an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Law; however, she was asked to accept a lower salary because of her husband’s well-paying job. In 1965, she gave birth to her second child. She was still working as an assistant professor and concealed her pregnancy for fear that her contract would not be renewed. 

In 1970, after receiving tenure the year prior, Ginsburg became professionally involved in gender equality after being asked to moderate a student panel in “women’s liberation.” After only a year, Ginsburg published two law review articles, led a seminar in gender discrimination, and partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to draft briefs in two federal cases. Throughout the 1970s, Ginsburg was a pioneer in the field of gender equality, drafting dozens of law review articles, contributing to Supreme Court briefs on gender discrimination, and co-authoring a law-school casebook on the matter. Due to her revolutionary research and career at Rutgers, Ginsburg became founding counsel of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project in 1972 and was hired by Columbia Law School, where she became the first tenured female faculty member. Throughout the 70s, Ginsburg argued before the Supreme Court six separate times and won five of the cases. 

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, D.C. Ginsburg was a very liberal judge, and became heavily involved in protecting women’s reproductive rights, specifically the right to have an abortion. In 1993 she delivered the Madison Lecture at New York University Law School, providing a critique of the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade. Ginsburg argued that the court should have issued a more limited decision, providing room for the court to provide better details, claiming it would “reduce controversy rather than fuel it.” 

In August of 1993, Ginsburg replaced Byron White on the Supreme Court after being nominated by president Bill Clinton and confirmed by the senate on a vote of 96-3. Ginsburg would continue to lead a fulfilling legacy for 27 years, some notable acts include requiring state funded schools to admit women (United States v. Virginia), creating strides towards equal pay in her dissent from the Supreme Court’s decision on the pay discrimination case (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.), protection of pregnant women in the workplace, a key vote in queer people’s right to same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges), and a pioneer in the protection of Roe v. Wade. Even after her death, Ruth Bader Ginsburg continues to pave the way for gender equality from her past work both inside and outside of the Supreme Court. 

While women’s rights have been challenged in America, with the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the new President-elect’s decision to leave all aspects of reproductive rights up to each state, Ginsburg’s influence has been challenged. In spite of this injustice, feminists and pro-choice activists and politicians everywhere continue to advocate for reproductive rights. Now more than ever, it is crucial that politicians and activists across the country continue to advocate for reproductive rights and gender equality, as we are now entering a presidential term where those rights may be further threatened. This issue can be fought for through voting, educating yourself and others, and supporting political candidates and federal justices who will advocate for and work to re-establish reproductive rights and gender equality in law and government. Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent her whole life fighting for all encompassing women’s rights and gender equality, and as citizens who have been impacted by her work, it is expected that we carry on her legacy, especially in times of national adversity. Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be remembered in history as the first woman to make major breakthroughs in laws pertaining to women’s rights and gender equality as a tenured professor at Ivy League universities, all while raising two children. It was for those reasons and so much more that NYU law students and young people across the nation granted her the title of the “Notorious RBG.”

[beardedmrbean]

Jay-Z, the star rapper and entrepreneur whose real name is Shawn Carter, was accused in a lawsuit Sunday of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 allegedly along with Sean “Diddy” Combs. 

The anonymous accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” said the assault happened after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party.

The federal lawsuit was originally filed in October in the Southern District of New York, listing Combs as a defendant. It was refiled Sunday to include Carter.  

Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee, who filed the suit, did not comment. 

Carter called the allegations "idiotic" in a lengthy statement Sunday evening and alleged that Buzbee was engaged in unprofessional behavior.

"These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?" Carter said in a statement to NBC News. "These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case."

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on whether the office is pursuing the case when shown NBC News' report on the lawsuit.

Buzbee has filed several lawsuits in recent months — all have withheld their complainants’ names — accusing Combs of assault and rape. This is the first suit in which he has named another high-profile defendant.  

In a statement, legal representatives for Combs called the suits "shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them, just as lies have been spread about Mr. Combs."

"As his legal team has said before, Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone—man or woman, adult or minor,” the statement read.

Federal prosecutors in New York criminally charged Combs in September with racketeering, sex trafficking and other offenses, and he is behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center after he was denied bail for a third time last month. His trial is scheduled for May 5. 

Prosecutors said in a court hearing last month that they are in the process of potentially bringing more charges against Combs in a superseding indictment. 

Before the lawsuit was refiled Sunday, "Carter received a letter from Plaintiff’s counsel requesting a mediation to resolve this matter," Buzbee wrote in the suit. In response to the letter, which NBC News has seen, Carter filed his own lawsuit against the accuser's attorneys, Buzbee wrote in the suit.

“You have made a terrible error in judgement thinking that all ‘celebrities’ are the same,” Carter added in his statement Sunday. “I’m not from your world. I’m a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn. We don’t play these types of games. We have very strict codes and honor. We protect children.”

The lawsuit claims that in 2000, when Doe was 13, Combs and Carter raped her at a house party after the MTV Video Music Awards in New York.  

The lawsuit says a friend dropped her off at the VMAs at Radio City Music Hall. She did not have a ticket, and she approached various limousine drivers to try to gain access to the show or an after-party.

One driver, the lawsuit says, told her that he worked for Combs and that she “fit what Diddy was looking for.” He invited her to a party after the show and told her to return to his car later in the evening after he transported Carter and Combs, the suit says.  

Later, the driver picked her up, the suit says, and after 20 minutes they arrived at a white house with a U-shaped driveway, the suit says. She had to sign a document she believed was a nondisclosure agreement on arrival — and did not receive a copy — to enter the party, which the suit says was filled with celebrities and people doing marijuana and cocaine.  

She was offered a drink that made her feel “woozy, lightheaded and felt [like] she needed to lie down,” the suit says, and she went into a room to rest.  

Shortly afterward, the suit says, Combs and Carter entered the room with Combs saying, “You are ready to party!” 

That’s when, she alleges, Carter removed her clothes, held her down and raped her while Combs and an unnamed female celebrity watched. She says Combs also raped her as Carter and the woman looked on.  

The suit says that she was able to resist being forced to perform oral sex on Combs by hitting him in the neck and that he “stopped.”  

After the alleged assault, the suit says, she “grabbed her clothes” and left. She made her way to a gas station, where she called her father, it says.      

The accuser is seeking unspecified damages. The lawsuit is filed under New York’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act.

"My only heartbreak is for my family," Carter said in the statement. "My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people. I mourn yet another loss of innocence.

"Only your network of conspiracy theorists, fake physics, will believe the idiotic claims you have levied against me that, if not for the seriousness surrounding harm to kids, would be laughable," Carter added.

[darkmaga-returns]

Attorney General is a supremely important position in any administration, as he heads the legal arm of the government. Without a strong legal team many programs and initiatives would simply get bogged down. The Trump transition has put Mark Paoletta in charge of DoJ for the transition period, and that will presumably include input into choosing and vetting candidates for the AG position. He has thrown down the gauntlet to DoJ employees in a lengthy tweet. Before reproducing that tweet, however, you need to know who Mark Paoletta is:

Mark Paoletta is an American attorney who served in roles in the first Donald Trump administration. From January 8, 2018, to January 20, 2021, Paoletta served as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Paoletta is a close friend and associate of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife … He helped participate in Justice Thomas's successful confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1991. Following the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Paoletta represented Ginni Thomas' interactions with the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Throughout his legal career, Paoletta has specialized in representing clients in congressional investigations.

On January 5, 2017, Paoletta along with then Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and Don McGahn helped Donald Trump vet Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.

None of that explicitly tells you what Paoletta’s policy views are—he has, after all, mostly filled positions in which it’s his duty to provide legal support for the president’s policies, not come up with policies on his own. On the other hand, based on his overall profile and associations, the WaPo can probably be forgiven for characterizing Paoletta as “a hard charging conservative.” Here’s his tweet:

Mark Paoletta @MarkPaoletta

President Trump was elected by the American people to carry out his agenda, which includes:

Securing the southern border, mass deportations of illegal aliens (beginning with rapists and murderers), surging resources to process immigration/asylum claims to clear out backlog and end widespread abuse of the asylum system, ending automatic citizenship for children of illegal aliens, and taking federal actions to prevent sanctuary cities from obstructing federal immigration enforcement,

Restoring law and order across our country, including rescuing our cities from mob violence and left-wing soft on crime prosecutors,

Immediately stopping the lawfare and persecution of political opponents that is unprecedented in American history and destroying our democracy,

Granting pardons or commutations to January 6th defendants and other defendants who have been subjected to politically-driven lawfare prosecutions and sentences,

Abolishing DEI in government and taking action against those companies and universities that engage in racial discrimination,

Protecting Americans’ right to speech, religion, and the Second Amendment,

Protecting religious liberties, including investigating and prosecuting the horrific antisemitism ripping through this country,

Protecting parents’ rights from irreparable transgender surgeries and procedures on minor children, and investigating those who have pushed this on minor children;

Paving the way for an energy boom and American Energy Golden Age,

And holding accountable those who weaponized their government authority to abuse Americans.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

The NY Times Jan. 7th 2025 by Alan Feuer

The federal judge who handled President-elect Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case temporarily barred the special counsel, Jack Smith, on Tuesday from releasing his final report on the investigation to the public.

In a brief ruling, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee who dismissed the documents case in its entirety this summer, enjoined Mr. Smith from sharing his report outside the Justice Department until a federal appeals court in Atlanta, which is now considering a challenge to her dismissal of the case, makes a decision about how to handle the report.

On Monday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers and lawyers for his two co-defendants began a multipronged effort to stop the release of Mr. Smith’s report, which they claimed was “one-sided” and part of a “politically motivated attack” against the president-elect.

Mr. Trump’s legal team wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland asking him to stop the release of the report, which was set to be made public as soon as Friday. In a separate move, lawyers for Mr. Trump’s co-defendants in the documents case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, went directly to Judge Cannon, of the Southern District of Florida, asking for an emergency order blocking the release.

The legal scrambling continued on Tuesday, as Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira asked the appeals court hearing the case to weigh in on blocking the report and Mr. Trump sought to join their motion in front of Judge Cannon.

With the case already dismissed, the report would essentially be Mr. Smith’s final chance to lay out damaging new details and evidence, if he has any, about how Mr. Trump mishandled a trove of classified documents after he left office in 2021.

Judge Cannon threw out the case in July, ruling, in the face of decades of precedent, that Mr. Smith had been unlawfully appointed special counsel. Mr. Smith quickly challenged that decision in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

But after Mr. Trump won the election in November, Mr. Smith dropped the appeal where Mr. Trump was concerned, effectively ending his part in the matter. Mr. Smith did not drop the appeal against Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira, and federal prosecutors in Florida intend to pursue it once Mr. Smith steps down and disbands his team.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Just ONE week to go! Join Miss Major, Adria Jawort, Christynne Lili Wrene Wood, Teamsters LGBTQ Caucus and many more in Orlando next Saturday!

Excitement for the October 7 National March to Protect Trans Youth & Speakout for Trans Lives continues to grow in Florida and nationally. We have an amazing multigenerational, multinational, multigender team organizing for this historic anti-fascist event – but we need YOU!

Together with the Center for Constitutional Rights and Southern Legal Counsel, we have launched a legal challenge to the DeSantis regime's bathroom ban: https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/trans-and-non-binary-activists-challenge-florida-bathroom-ban

If you can't come to the march, please consider making a donation so others can go:

https://protecttranskidsmarch.org/

Share our English and Spanish posters, our website, and follow us on the social media platforms of your choice:

https://linktr.ee/transyouthmarch

[batboyblog]

Link

Here are the four national groups mounting legal challenges to this ruling in court representing Florida parents of trans kids

Southern Legal Counsel

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders

the National Center for Lesbian Rights

the Human Rights Campaign

please support these groups, they are the tip of the spear not only in Florida but across America, anti-trans laws will succeed or fail based on if these groups and others have the resources to fight them in court.

[zinniajones]

Florida Adult Trans Care Ban SB 254, June 3, 2023 interim update

(from www.floridaban.com)

INTERIM UPDATE, June 3, 2023:

Rainbow Progress Fund provides a firsthand account of the joint Boards of Medicine committee hearing on June 1, including false and eugenicist claims by Board member Patrick Hunter (a member of the anti-trans Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine and Catholic Medical Association) that transitioning "lowers IQ" of trans people.

The committee failed to advance any of the necessary informed consent forms, mandated by SB 254, that are needed by MDs and DOs before they can resume providing new prescriptions. This means that until these forms become available, MDs and DOs cannot prescribe their established trans patients any new change in dosage of their current medication, or add any new medication to their existing HRT regimen.

Simone Chriss of Southern Legal Counsel, a nonprofit currently bringing litigation against SB 254 and its adult care restrictions, explains the current effective policy and status of prescribing restrictions on MDs/DOs as of June 3, 2023:

“While no draft consent forms have been released yet, the Boards are expected to file an emergency rule soon that will provide clarification about continuation of care for patients while the informed consent forms are being developed. The Boards’ discussions over the past two days indicated that, as we’d shared previously, physicians can continue prescribing to patients who provided informed consent and were first prescribed prior to May 17th. The emergency rule should provide guidance on whether and how new prescriptions and adjustments to medications can be prescribed prior to the adoption of informed consent forms. No emergency rule language has been posted yet on the Florida Administrative Register.”

Rainbow Progress Fund explains the unacceptable medical danger of the current situation for trans patients: "Those currently on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) will not be able to adjust their medication until the new consent forms are finalized. This delay poses potential risks to patients whose hormone levels may require immediate attention."

To be clear, even when these forms become available, this does not and will not change SB 254's statutory ban on NPs and APRNs prescribing gender-affirming care. As 80% of trans adults on HRT in Florida receive their prescriptions via an NP or APRN, the effects of SB 254 have permanently disrupted the established prescriptions and ongoing medical treatment of thousands of trans adults across the state. SB 254 continuously jeopardizes the trans community's health and must still be mitigated in its entirety.

No other state has ever imposed SB 254's novel and selective restrictions on NPs and APRNs, who have prescribing authority just as doctors and physicians can prescribe medication. NPs and APRNs in all other states - and in Florida until SB 254 was enacted this May - have always been able to prescribe all gender-affirming hormone therapy, including schedule III medications like testosterone. "NPs have the prescriptive authority to prescribe controlled substances in all fifty states." (Zhang & Patel, 2022) There has never been any reason for this unique new restriction on NPs alone, prohibiting gender-affirming prescriptions alone, other than Florida's intentional targeting of the ongoing medically necessary treatment of almost all trans adults in the state.

The committee concluded that their next meeting will occur in three weeks, on June 23 at an undetermined location or video call, to continue considering the required adult consent forms. This is completely unacceptable. The Boards must issue the mandated informed consent forms immediately in order to restore the ability of MDs and DOs to freely manage and prescribe any new or changed medically necessary treatment for their trans patients, even as this is itself utterly insufficient to mitigate the overwhelming danger to health and life caused by SB 254.

None of this is over until SB 254 is completely reversed.

We will continue to provide updates as we confirm any further policy actions by the Boards and their impacts on trans patients and our providers. The policy chart below will be updated to incorporate this information when it becomes available. Thank you to the trans community of Florida for closely monitoring this situation and assisting us, and to our allies here and abroad. The world will see that we are not alone and you are a part of making that happen. Your strength and unstoppable spirit in an unimaginable situation is what will ensure we survive. As long as Florida exists, Transgender Florida will be a fact. (Zinnia Jones, June 3, 2023)

Please support Florida's local gender clinics and their nurse practitioners as they work to survive this crisis and continue providing care to trans Floridians: https://spektrum.health/DONATE/

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Katherine Faulders, Will Steakin, John Santucci, and Alexander Mallin at ABC News:

A proposed personnel roster circulating within Donald Trump's campaign and transition operation lists Aileen Cannon, the federal judge who threw out Trump's classified documents case, as a possible candidate for attorney general, multiple sources familiar with the matter have told ABC News. Cannon's name appears on a document reviewed by ABC News titled "Transition Planning: Legal Principals," which lists potential staffing for the White House counsel's office, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and U.S. attorneys' offices, as well as proposed candidates for the top legal positions within multiple government agencies, should Trump be reelected.

The document was drafted by Trump's top advisers with input from Boris Epshteyn, who oversees Trump's legal team and is one of Trump's most trusted advisers, sources familiar with the matter said. Cannon's name appears second after former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, according to the document reviewed by ABC News, which includes nearly a dozen potential candidates for attorney general. Cannon's name was added to the list well after the classified documents case was thrown out over the summer, the sources said. Trump nominated Cannon as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida in 2020 and has repeatedly praised her for dismissing the 40 criminal counts brought by special counsel Jack Smith related to Trump's handling of classified materials after leaving the White House. Cannon dismissed the case on the first day of the Republican National Convention in July, on the grounds that Smith's appointment as special counsel overseeing the case was unconstitutional because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by Congress. Smith has appealed that decision.

Criminal-codding MAGA judicial activist Aileen Cannon is being potentially considered for the AG spot if Donald Trump wins this election.

Wanna keep Cannon far away from being AG? Vote Kamala Harris.

See Also:

Daily Kos: You won't believe some of the names rumored for Trump's Cabinet