A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday that a controversial Texas law, Senate Bill (SB) 4, will remain on hold as litigation continues. SB4, the controversial Texas law that is the subject of this continued litigation, was originally signed into law in December 2023. If enforced, it would [...]
Search Results for: iowa
Iowa lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday that would make it a crime to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the US. The passage puts the midwestern state on track to join Texas in enforcing state immigration laws that operate independently of the federal immigration system, meaning they are not directly [...]
Book ban attempts in US libraries and schools hit record high in 2023: national library group
The American Library Association (ALA) announced on Thursday that censorship demands and book ban attempts in public libraries and schools hit a record high in 2023. The ALA documented 1,247 demands to ban 4,240 different books. This is a 65 percent increase from 2022, when 2,571 books faced censorship demands. In 17 states, book ban [...]
ACLU files lawsuit over Virginia guidelines for transgender students
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia filed two lawsuits Thursday against the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) on behalf of two transgender students challenging the department’s 2023 model policies. Virginia law authorizes VDOE to issue model policies regarding the treatment of transgender students, and the policies are required to reflect “evidence-based best practices” for [...]
Iowa lawmakers decline to advance bill removing gender identity as protected class
Iowa lawmakers declined to advance a piece of legislation on Wednesday that would have removed gender identity as a protected class under the state’s civil rights law. In a 3-0 tally, a subcommittee of the Iowa legislature’s Judiciary Committee voted against moving the bill forward. Although the bill sought to add a new category to [...]
Deaths on the Border: The Argument for Charging the Texas Army National Guard
Immigration is one of the hottest hot button issues going into the 2024 US presidential election. It has divided Americans, and the Republican party continues to go to extremes on the matter, with some 81% of GOP voters in the Iowa primary agreeing with former president Donald Trump’s description of immigrants as “poisoning the blood [...]
The US government has again desecrated the memory of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the latest example of the Biden administration having broken its promise to work to end the death penalty, it announced its intention to seek a federal death sentence against Peyton Gendron, the 19-year-old who horrifically murdered 10 [...]
US Supreme Court declines to review Indiana school district's transgender bathroom policy
The US Supreme Court denied certiorari Tuesday to an Indiana public school district’s appeal of a ruling that prohibited the district from enforcing its transgender bathroom policy. In August, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville’s policy, which barred transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their [...]
Trump's Wrongful Pardons for Crimes Against International Law
“So far from it being unjust to punish him, it would be unjust if his wrongs were allowed to go unpunished.” Nuremberg Tribunal (1946) At the beginning of 2024, former President Donald J. Trump’s most conspicuously unsupportable legal claim has been his personal immunity from criminal prosecution. With this claim, Mr. Trump and his lead [...]
Judge overseeing Trump civil fraud trial receives bomb threat at home
A bomb threat was reported early Thursday morning at the Long Island residence of Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump, according to US media. Officials from the Nassau County Police Department subsequently confirmed that the threat was, in fact, a swatting incident—a deliberate false alarm crafted [...]