The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage is now released! It is available on Amazon and local bookstores. Absent breaking news, I will do my first television interview tonight on Special Report with Bret Baier (6-7 ET). As always, I am deeply appreciative to everyone who has purchased early copies of the first edition of this work.
Continue reading “The Indispensable Right Is Now Available!”
As the first edition goes out this week, the Wall Street Journal has published its review of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. Tunku Varadarajan takes a deep dive into the book and its historical, philosophical, and cultural exploration of this quintessentially American right. I am profoundly grateful for this thorough and positive review of the book.
The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage is about to hit the shelves around the country. The pre-ordered copies of the first edition will be mailed in days with a formal release date of June 18th. I wanted to thank everyone who has pre-ordered the book and the generous comments of reviewers.
The book has been 30 years in the making. The book explores our struggle with free speech and why we continue to grapple with the meaning of this core, defining right. It does so in part through the stories of courageous figures who refused to yield to the demands of others to be silent, even at the risk of their own lives. The book seeks to reexamine the essence of this right and how, after a brief moment of clarity at our founding, we abandoned its true foundation as a natural or autonomous right. Many agree with Justice Louis Brandeis that free speech is indispensable but not why it is indispensable. That lack of proper foundation has left the right vulnerable to continual tradeoffs and contractions, particularly in what is now arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech period in our history.
Here is an excerpt from the book for those interested in obtaining a copy:
Continue reading “Here is an Excerpt From The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage”
Below is my column in The Hill on the latest calls to protect democracy with distinctly undemocratic measures. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insisted that the 2024 election was our D-Day, suggesting that voters would have to fight the GOP like the Nazis in World War II. Clinton previously called on Europe to censor American citizens when Twitter sought to dismantle its censorship program and called her defeat in the 2016 election “illegitimate.” Yet, for many civil libertarians, the “defenders of democracy” are the very threat to democracy going into the 2024 election.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Can Democracy Survive the “Defenders of Democracy”?”
We have been discussing the dubious constitutional basis for President Joe Biden withholding the audio tapes of his interview with special counsel Robert Hur. I have previously written that the claim of privilege makes little sense when the transcript of the interview has already been released. It seems curious that Biden is claiming to be the president “who cannot be heard” in withholding the audio version. It just got wackier as the Justice Department seeks to create a new type of “Deepfake privilege” that would effectively blow away all existing limits on the use of the privilege when it comes to audio or visual records of a president. Continue reading “The Deepfake Privilege? The Justice Department Makes Startling Claim to Withhold the Biden-Hur Audiotape”
Below is a slightly expanded version of my column in the New York Post on the verdict in the Trump trial. The Manhattan case, in my view, was a raw political use of the criminal justice system. It is only the latest example of the use of the justice system for political purposes and harkens back to the Adams Administration at the start of our Republic. I discuss that period in my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (which is available this month).
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Ghost of John Adams: How the Trump Trial Harkens Back to a Dark Period of American Law”
“Democracy is on the ballot.” That mantra of President Joe Biden and other Democrats has suggested that “this may be our last election” if the Republicans win in 2024. A few of us have noted that the Democrats seem more keen on claiming the mantle of the defenders of democracy than actually practicing it. Democrats have sought to disqualify Donald Trump and dozens of Republicans from ballots; block third party candidates, censor and blacklist of those with opposing views; and weaponize the legal system against their opponents. Most recently, in California, democracy is truly on the ballot and the Democrats are on the wrong side. Continue reading ““Democracy is on the Ballot”: California Democrats Seek to Prevent Voters from Approving New Taxes”
The government often waits until Friday night when it wants to file something controversial in seeking to reduce media coverage and public attention. Special Counsel Jack Smith followed this practice this week in quietly filing a motion to gag former president Donald Trump in his Florida case. Smith took the action after Trump suggested that the warrant used on his Palm Beach home included a provision allowing the use of lethal force. While the provision is standard in such warrants, Trump has portrayed the inclusion of the boilerplate language as a threat to his life and the lives of his family. Nevertheless, I believe that the gag order, like Smith’s past demands, is over-broad and a violation of the free speech rights of the former president. Continue reading “Special Counsel Jack Smith Demands a New Gag on Trump”
Today I will have the pleasure of participating in a debate titled Civil Disagreements: Presidential Self Pardons. I will be debating Professor Brian Kalt, who believes that the presidents do not have the authority to pardon themselves. I will be taking the opposing position. The debate will be held entirely online. The debate is sponsored by Reform for Illinois, the American Bar Association, the Chicago Chapter of the American Constitution Society, and the Chicago Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society
Continue reading “Turley to Debate Kalt on Presidential Self-Pardons”
Below is my column in USA Today on the effort to impeach President Joe Biden over his freezing of arms shipments to Israel. While one can strongly disagree with the policy or the motivation behind the action, it is not a high crime and misdemeanor in my view.
Here is the column: Continue reading “No, President Biden Did Not Commit an Impeachable Offense in Freezing the Arms Shipment to Israel”
The firm of former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias has lost another election case in a spectacular fashion. The Chief Judge of the Western District of Wisconsin, James Peterson (an Obama appointee), did not just reject but ridiculed the Elias Law Group challenge to a witness requirement for absentee voting. Elias has been previously sanctioned in court and accused of lying in the Steele dossier scandal by journalists and others. Continue reading ““It Simply Does Not Make Any Sense”: Judge Trashes Election Lawsuit by the Elias Law Firm”
The Trump short list for vice presidential candidates is reportedly down to Ohio Senator, J.D. Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Rubio is a favorite for many due to his record in the Senate and his appeal to hispanic voters (where the GOP is hoping to make gains in the coming election). The problem is not Rubio or his record, but his residence. Continue reading “Trump’s 12th Amendment Problem: The VP Short List Has a Residency Dilemma”
Below is my column in the New York Post on yesterday’s oral arguments on presidential immunity. As expected, with the exception of the three liberal justices, the Court appears to be struggling to find a more nuanced approach that would avoid the extreme positions of both parties. Rather than take a header off either cliff, the justices seem interested in a controlled descent into the depths of Article II.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Constitutional Abyss: Justices Signal a Desire to Avoid Both Cliffs on Presidential Immunity”
We have often discussed how cities and universities will use the threat of protests to block or shutdown free speech, particularly of conservative speakers or groups. We now have a major decision out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that could prove an important precedent in resisting the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. In Meinecke v. City of Seattle, the court ruled against Seattle in a case involving the arrest of a pro-life protester. Matthew Meinecke was harassed by Antifa and other counterprotesters, but police arrested Meineche when he refused to yield in exercising his right to free speech. Continue reading “Ninth Circuit Rules Against Seattle in Using “Heckler’s Veto” in Arrest of Pro-Life Protester”
We recently discussed the students who conducted a protest inside the home of Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife, law Professor Catherine Fisk. The students, including UC Berkeley law student Malak Afaneh, refused to stop disrupting the dinner as Chemerinsky and Fisk reminded them that this is their home, not a public forum. Now Afaneh is claiming a First Amendment right to enter a private home and protest and she is citing legal advisers with the National Lawyers Guild. Continue reading “Berkeley Law Student: We Had A Protected Right to Protest at Dean’s Home”