20250313

Freedom Now - Free Speech

Why we need a new free speech movement

And why universities should sue the Trump regime for abridging the First Amendment rights of their institutions and their students

The Trump regime is actively suppressing speech at major American universities.

Trump’s recent executive orders bar diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at all educational institutions that receive federal funds.

Last week, Trump threatened in a social media post to punish any university that permits “illegal” protests but did not define what he meant by illegal protests.

On Friday he cancelled hundreds of millions in grants and contracts with Columbia University for allowing peaceful protests the regime dislikes.

On Saturday, Trump’s immigration officials arrested a Columbia graduate student — who is a permanent resident of the United States with a green card and an American wife — and sent him to a prison in Louisiana. Why? He did not engage in criminal activity. The graduate student peacefully expressed political views that the regime dislikes.

Then on Monday, the Trump regime warned 60 universities that they could face penalties for allowing peaceful demonstrations and speech that the administration dislikes.

And on Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, told reporters that Columbia had refused to help the regime identify people engaged in speech the regime found objectionable, and warned, “We expect all America’s colleges and universities to comply with this administration’s policy.”

Stand Up for the First Amendment

Judges must hold the line against Mad King Donald
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Let’s consider the following hypothetical scenario:

A green card holder from Ukraine legally present in the United States engages in campus protests against Donald Trump’s sellout of Ukraine to the Russian dictator. Never arrested or charged with a crime, he is snatched up by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), spirited away to detention in another state, Louisiana (without notice to his pregnant wife or counsel), and threatened with deportation.

Here’s another version:

A green card holder from Canada legally present in the U.S. protests Trump’s mindbogglingly dumb tariff war. Never arrested or charged, he too is snatched up, sent to another state and threatened with deportation.

Judge Howell Declines To Let The Mad King Cut Off Lawyers’ Heads

Trump’s executive order attacking Perkins Coie is on hold … for now.
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Trump has long despised Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election. Indeed the first paragraph of the order mentions Clinton, as well as GOP supervillain George Soros. And when he signed the order, he promised that he’d be putting out hits on perhaps fifteen other firms.
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The edict is functionally a death penalty for Perkins Coie. Biglaw’s bread and butter is large corporations, almost all of whom do business with the federal government
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After a two-hour hearing, Judge Beryl Howell agreed. She held that the order violated the First Amendment, Perkins Coie’s due process rights, and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel of the firm’s clients. She issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) with respect to three sections of the order, as requested in the plaintiffs’ motion.

Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – March 12, 2025

Trump’s 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel imported into the U.S. went into effect today, prompting retaliatory tariffs from the European Union and Canada. The E.U. announced tariffs on about $28 billion worth of products, including beef and whiskey, mostly produced by Republican-dominated states. “We deeply regret this measure,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers. These tariffs are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy.”Uncertainty Is What Trump Loves About His Tariff Powers
Investors and executives (and Maria Bartiromo) yearn for ‘clarity’ on tariffs. But withholding that clarity is what gives Trump leverage and attention.

Business executives and investors don’t know how to respond to President Trump’s ever-changing tariff policies. If they were confident that tariffs would remain fairly modest, they could proceed with their investment plans undisturbed. And if they knew that a particular immodest tariff policy was on its way in, they could at least adjust their plans to account for the coming policy environment. But the current situation — where tariffs are likely to be a lot higher in the future, but nobody knows how much higher or on which products — just leaves them not knowing what to do with their capital.

One of the biggest potential victims of the new tariffs: The Ford F-150

America’s favorite pickup truck may stand among the most impacted by President Donald Trump’s aluminum and steel tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

One of the industry’s largest users of aluminum in the United States is Ford’s F-150 pickup truck, which also doubles as the nation’s top-selling vehicle.

Does Canada really have tariffs above 200% on US dairy products?
- US doesn’t hit level of tariff-free sales for 200%-plus tariffs to kick in
- Trump negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2018
- US has ‘never gotten close’ to exceeding quotas: Dairy groups
The war on inflation is being won…but!

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This inflation number might be too good to last
Keep an eye on the details beneath the headlines. Nearly half of that inflation print came from shelter costs. This is the housing component of the inflation measure, which represents what people pay for rent, or the equivalent of rent for homeowners. It matters because housing (or shelter) is usually one of the biggest expenses in a household’s budget, so when it goes up, it significantly affects everyday families.

Furthermore, there was a big chunk of disinflation that came from other sectors, which might just be seasonal noise.
Donald Trump takes credit for military recruitment turnaround that started with Joe Biden

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“The peak in Army recruiting was in late August 2024 — months before the election,” Segal said. “In short, Trump shouldn’t get credit for processes that preceded his election.”

Trump has united the free world against a grave threat

It’s coming from inside the White House.

DOGE Makes Its Latest Errors Harder to Find

Elon Musk’s group obscured the details of some new claims on its website, despite promises of transparency. But The Times was still able to detect another batch of mistakes.
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Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE, Mr. Musk’s government-restructuring effort, had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for. That allowed the public to fact-check its work by comparing its figures with federal spending databases and talking to the groups whose funding had been cut.This time, it did not include those details. A White House official said that was done for security purposes.

Musk attacks the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker

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Musk offered no actual critique of the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker’s methodology. Instead, he is arguing that it is somehow hypocritical to claim that Musk is overstating the scope of the cuts and that the cuts are harmful. This is absurd.
As measles cases soar, RFK Jr. declares war on science

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Measles is incredibly contagious and dangerous. Before the vaccine was widely available, “measles was the single leading killer of young children globally.” Fortunately, the MMR vaccine is highly effective and safe. Two doses of the vaccine provide 97% effectiveness against measles, and one shot provides 93% effectiveness, according to the CDC. The vaccine is so effective that in 2000 the disease was declared eliminated in the United States. But in recent years, vaccination rates have fallen, and measles cases have been on the rise.The scientifically proven way to get the widespread outbreak of measles under control is to increase vaccination rates. But instead, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), is spreading misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
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Kennedy has used the measles outbreak to promote alternative remedies that have not been proven effective against the disease. Kennedy announced that the HHS would conduct clinical trials of alternative treatments for measles, including a steroid, an antibiotic, and cod liver oil, due to its high levels of vitamin A. Kennedy said that he had heard that these treatments caused “miraculous and instantaneous recovery.”

Why Democrats Shouldn’t Fear the Politics of a Shutdown

Some fights are worth having even if victory isn’t assured
1. A Tough Question
2. The Politics of a Shutdown Aren’t Necessarily Bad
3. If Democrats Do This, They Mean Business

‘People Are Scared’: Inside CISA as It Reels From Trump’s Purge

Employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency tell WIRED they’re struggling to protect the US while the administration dismisses their colleagues and poisons their partnerships.
Trump’s Plan to Toss Migrants in Guantánamo Bay Takes Another Embarrassing Turn

EMPTY HANDED
Even a Fox News reporter conceded the whole project now looks like “an expensive photo op.”

All the migrants being held by the Trump administration at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba have been moved to the United States, officials told multiple news outlets Wednesday.
The Five-Year Cover-Up: How Trump’s Racist Covid Strategy Got Buried

Their diabolical and racist plan, for purely political purposes, to intentionally allow a half-million Americans to die has been largely ignored by the American mainstream media.
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Jared Kushner put together a task force of preppie 30-something white men he knew from college to coordinate getting Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from Trump buddies and companies close to Republican members of Congress into hospitals.

They even had a plan for the Post Office to distribute 650 million masks — 5 to every American household — to slow the pandemic.

But then came April 7th, just one month later, when the New York Times ran a front-page story with the headline: Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States.

It was followed the day later with the all-caps headline across the top of the front page: BLACK AMERICANS BEAR THE BRUNT AS DEATHS CLIMB.

It hit conservative media, Donald Trump, and Jared Kushner like a lightning bolt.

Most of the non-elderly people dying from Covid, the report found, were Black or Hispanic, not white people!
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Tucker Carlson, the only prime-time Fox host who’d previously expressed serious concerns about the dangers of the virus, changed his tune the following day, as documented by Media Matters for America.

Now, Tucker said on April 8th:

“[W]e can begin to consider how to improve the lives of the rest, the countless Americans who have been grievously hurt by this, by our response to this. How do we get 17 million of our most vulnerable citizens back to work? That’s our task.”

“The rest,” of course, were white people. Those “vulnerable citizens” Tucker wanted to get “back to work” were disproportionately minorities. As a report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus noted:

“Essential workers who needed to work in person, and their family members, were significantly more likely to contract the coronavirus early in the crisis. These essential workers disproportionately earned low wages and were more likely to be people of color.

“Black and Latina women were particularly ‘overrepresented as essential workers’ at greater risk of coronavirus infection ‘with Latina women making up 22% of women grocery store workers and Black women making up 27% of women home health aide workers’…”

On the other hand, salaried workers — overwhelmingly white — were telecommuting.
The Trump Regime’s Climate “Realism” Is Even Worse Than It Sounds

The new energy secretary says climate disasters are just the price you pay for “building the modern world.” A startling number of business and world leaders seem to agree with him.

‘Unexpected’ rate of sea level rise in 2024: NASA

Earth’s oceans rose faster than expected last year as the world experienced its hottest year on record, NASA says.

Trump’s Crazed Midnight Tirade Over Musk’s Unpopularity Shows Weakness

Trump hates green energy—but he loves Teslas, which he’s now pathetically pleading with his followers to buy as a show of loyalty and devotion to Elon Musk.
The Border Where Compassion Died

The story of a 10-year-old American child, battling brain cancer, being deported alongside her undocumented parents isn’t just tragic — it’s obscene. It’s the kind of horror story that forces you to ask: How did we get here? How did we become a country that deports a sick child as if she were a misplaced piece of luggage? How did we end up with a system that treats a desperate mother’s pleas as nothing more than background noise?

…This family’s crime? Trying to save their child’s life. They weren’t sneaking across the desert under cover of night; they were driving to a Houston hospital for an emergency medical checkup. They’d made this trip before — five times, to be exact — each time passing through the same immigration checkpoint with letters from their doctors and lawyers in hand. But this time, those letters didn’t matter. This time, the officers at the checkpoint decided that a 10-year-old cancer survivor’s fragile condition wasn’t worth their time.
Federal judge rules Trump must reinstate many fired federal employees

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U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s ruling broadens his previous order to now require the government to reinstate probationary employees fired on Feb. 13 and 14 at the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury departments.

The case is one of multiple pending lawsuits challenging the mass terminations of probationary workers, who are usually in their first or second year in a role. The firings are just one dimension of a broader effort by the new Trump administration to reshape the federal bureaucracy, which has sparked dozens of lawsuits.

Alsup issued his ruling from the bench after criticizing the government for withdrawing a sworn declaration it submitted from acting Office of Personnel Management (OPM) head Charles Ezell so he wouldn’t have to testify and face cross-examination at Thursday’s hearing, as the judge had ordered.
Trump’s FBI Moves to Criminally Charge Major Climate Groups

The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.

The FBI is moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration.

Citibank revealed in a court filing Wednesday that it was told to freeze the groups’ bank accounts at the FBI’s request. The reason? The FBI alleges that the groups are involved in “possible criminal violations,” including “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

“The FBI has told Citibank that recipients of EPA climate grants are being considered as potentially liable for fraud. That is, the Trump administration wants to criminalize work on climate science and impacts,” the @capitolhunters account wrote Wednesday on X. “An incoming administration not only cancels federal grants but declares recipients as criminals. All these grantees applied under government calls FOR ENVIRONMENTAL WORK, were reviewed and accepted. Trump wants to jail them.“
America’s clean air rules boost health and the economy − here’s what EPA’s new deregulation plans ignore
Marco Rubio’s Policies Might Shut the Door to People Like His Grandfather

The immigration officer was unmoved. He did not see an exiled family man — just someone who had no visa, worked for the Castro government and could pose a security risk.
As Trump’s Untested Emissary to Putin, Witkoff’s Role May Bring Risk

The real estate developer and president’s friend lacks diplomatic experience, but the new administration might view that as a plus.

When President Trump appointed his friend Steven Witkoff to be his Middle East envoy last November, the choice prompted head-scratching in diplomatic circles.
A Dangerous New Supreme Court Case Could Open the Door to Prosecutions for DEI

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Kousisis has, thus far, flown under the radar. But the case represents a ticking time bomb in the Trump administration’s aggressive fight against diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
Trump guts the Department of Education, making discrimination complaints ‘virtually impossible’ to resolve

With a mass email sharing what it called “difficult news,” the U.S. Department of Education has eroded one of its own key duties, abolishing more than half of the offices that investigate civil rights complaints from students and their families.

Civil rights complaints in schools and colleges largely have been investigated through a dozen regional outposts across the country. Now there will be five.
Making Polluting Legal Again

The new EPA head wants to abandon any semblance of environmental protection
House Republican Tries To Hold A Town Hall And It Was A Disaster

Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) held a town hall where he was booed repeatedly especially when he defended Trump destroying the Constitution.
Ollie ollie in come free!

Republican criminals cooling their heels behind bars are advised to pay attention because it’s only a matter of time before the Trump White House establishes a 1-800-pardon-me number they can call to secure one of the get-out-of-jail-free cards Trump is issuing as eagerly as tariffs these days. A sleazy former Republican state senator from Tennessee by the name of Brian Kelsey is the latest beneficiary of Trump’s pardon largess. He was convicted in a campaign finance scam in 2022 after pleading guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors that he later tried to withdraw. His withdrawal motion was denied, and he had begun serving a 21-month sentence in a minimum security prison camp in Kentucky when Trump came through with his pardon on Tuesday.
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Pardons are not the only avenue of Trump’s assault on the rule of law. A senior official in the Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney, Elizabeth Oyer, was fired yesterday for refusing to go along with restoring the gun rights of Hollywood asshole Mel Gibson, who had been convicted of domestic violence in 2011 and had his gun rights suspended under a provision of the law that bans the ownership of guns by persons convicted of domestic violence. “Within hours of my decision not to do that, I was escorted out of my office by DOJ security officers,” Oyer told reporters after being fired. Oyer told the Washington Post, “I think it is important to shed some light on what is going on in the Department of Justice. It is incredibly difficult for people who are still there to speak up, and people who are still there fear retaliation from the current administration.” Oyer had submitted a list of people who had been vetted for the restoration of their gun rights because 20 years had passed since their conviction for nonviolent crimes, and they had maintained a record of exemplary conduct since then. The execrable Gibson, who had a record of other instances of domestic abuse, was not on her list. When she was ordered to add his name and refused, she was fired.
These Are the 10 DOGE Operatives Inside the Social Security Administration

The team working at the Social Security Administration appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency.

At least 10 people associated with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are now working at the Social Security Administration (SSA), according to government records reviewed by WIRED; this includes a number of young engineers whose presence at the SSA has not been reported. The ballooning of DOGE’s presence at the federal agency—which Bloomberg, citing sworn statements filed in federal court Wednesday, previously reported—comes as Musk and his cohorts are publicly threatening social security benefits, citing unsubstantiated claims of mass fraud.

The DOGE-affiliated personnel in question are currently listed in the agency’s internal organizational chart. Background checks for two are still pending, according to a filing by the SSA in federal court in Maryland opposing a motion for a temporary restraining order filed by unions that would prevent DOGE from accessing SSA records. (A sworn statement attached to the filing from the SSA’s deputy commissioner of human resources claims that six of the background checks are still pending.)

The operatives—whom the government did not name in its filing—are, according to internal documents, Akash Bobba, Scott Coulter, Marko Elez, Luke Farritor, Antonio Gracias, Gautier Cole Killian, Jon Koval, Nikhil Rajpal, Payton Rehling, and Ethan Shaotran. This team appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency.
‘Who the Hell Knows’: Lawyering—and Judging—in the Age of Trump

This is the first article in a two-part series on judges and lawyers response to actions from the Trump administration.

What impact will President Donald Trump’s attacks and those by his point men have on the legal profession?

Some observers are concerned—not so much that judges will be afraid to issue rulings that will earn the president’s ire, but that being a judge will cease to be viewed as an attractive career.

Law.com interviewed current and former judges, litigators and leaders in the profession about the impact of the Trump administration’s threats to judges and law firms.

They say that for the courts and the legal profession, Trump’s second term has quickly presented challenges that until now were unimaginable.

From the president’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie and memorandum about Covington & Burling, to Elon Musk’s statements calling for impeachment of judges who rule against the administration, and Vice President JD Vance’s claim that judges lack the authority to override the administration’s authority, the second Trump term appears designed to intimidate and subdue those in a position to impede the Trump agenda.

“People are scared,” said one BigLaw partner who spoke anonymously. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say the president has the power to destroy a firm or a company in relatively short order.”

Judges and Lawyers Speak Out Amid Trump Attacks

This is the second article in a two-part series on judges and lawyers response to actions from the Trump administration.

Law.com interviewed current and former judges, litigators and leaders in the profession about the impact of the Donald Trump administration’s threats to judges and law firms.

The industry has remained largely silent amid the president’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie and memorandum about Covington & Burling; Elon Musk’s statements calling for impeachment of judges who rule against the administration; and Vice President JD Vance’s claim that judges lack the authority to override the administration’s authority.

But now, some lawyers and judges are speaking out amid what they say is an unprecedented landscape.

Here’s what they told reporters from Law.com and other ALM publications.

Carl Tobias, Professor, University of Richmond Law School

It is unprecedented for an Article III judge to face impeachment for granting a plaintiff’s motion, said Tobias.
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“They are not going anywhere,” Tobias said of the impeachment articles, adding the lawmakers who introduced the articles are “wasting their time and taxpayer money, and they are not very strong. History bears that out.”

Bob Clifford, Clifford Law Offices

Even the plaintiffs’ bar was surprised by the actions against Perkins Coie.

Bob Clifford, of Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, who has an April 7 trial planned against Boeing over the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crash in 2019, said the order raises questions about whether Perkins Coie can continue to represent the aircraft manufacturer.

The Boeing trial is in federal court in Chicago, and the order bars Perkins Coie employees from access to federal buildings in circumstances that “would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States. These things are real threats to democracy because it appears that there’s an intolerance to contrary views,” Clifford said. “These are pretty scary times. You say something contrary, and they’re in attack mode against you. What happened to free speech and social discourse?”

“Certainly, the potential exists that this could impact Boeing’s representation by that firm,” Clifford said. But he questioned how such an order would be enforced. “When the Perkins Coie lawyer shows up, how does the U.S. Marshal know he’s barred from the building? Or is it a self-policing type of thing?” Clifford said.

In reality, he anticipated the order wouldn’t disrupt the trial given that Winston & Strawn is Boeing’s lead counsel and Perkins Coie is assisting in the case.

“But these are such strange times, who the hell knows?” Clifford said.

David Neff, Retired Practice Group Leader, Perkins Coie

Trump’s order targeting Perkins Coie is a warning sign for many law firms, said Neff, who retired from Perkins Coie in December after serving as co-chairman of both its financial transactions and restructuring practice group, and hotels & leisure practice group.

The order isn’t limited to lawyers working in government contracting but accuses Perkins Coie of racially discriminating against its own attorneys and staff and representing “activist donors.” It also references Perkins Coie’s lawyers being sanctioned by at least one court.

Neff said 95% of large law firms had some hiring practices that encouraged diversity, or had a lawyer who had been sanctioned. Dozens work with “activist donors,” he said.

Law firm leaders have a reason to be scared that they’ll be next on Trump’s radar screen.

“What would you do if you were the chairperson of a major New York firm?” Neff said. “Unless these law firms start to have a spine, and stand up for what is right, they are basically being complicit. And some of them not only will be even worse, they will gladly take business away and say, ‘thank God we’re not in the same boat as Covington and Perkins Coie.’ We’ve seen that in history before.”

But Neff, who started his 39-year legal career at DLA Piper and Jenner & Block, remained hopeful that law firm leaders wouldn’t stay silent. He called on law firm leaders to speak up about the order, which, unlike the Covington & Burling action, is much broader in scope.

“This is an order designed to destroy a major law firm that has historically represented the Democratic party,” Neff said. “Let’s call it as it is. And my point is other law firms should not be complicit in this order by substituting in as Perkins Coie in cases, and judges shouldn’t be complicit in allowing that to occur.”

“I have great faith in the people who run these large law firms and partners of the large law firms,” he added. “They are largely horrified by this order. Will they do anything about it remains to be seen.”

Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Collins J. Seitz Jr.

Harassment of judges is seeing an uptick and COVID-19 appears to have given rise to the trend, said Collins J. Seitz Jr., chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court.

Seitz emphasizes that he is not commenting specifically about Musk or any of the electric car magnate’s Delaware cases, or related legislation to change the state’s corporate laws. But the public, on social media, seems to feel licensed to attack judges over decisions that may be unpopular, he said.

“It does seem like we’re in a new world now where people feel free to not just attack the decisions—which is perfectly fair, to criticize judges and their decisions—but they start attacking the judges and their families. That’s where it seems like we’ve crossed a line where something needs to be done.”

While Delaware and other states have passed laws limiting public posting of judges’ addresses and other personal information, Seitz said fear is deterring some attorneys from becoming judges.

“It is a very difficult job. The last thing we want to do is have another factor that keeps people away from engaging in this vital public service. It really doesn’t bother me what people say about me over social media, but it does bother a lot of our judges. It bothers me on behalf of the judiciary when judges are unfairly attacked personally for their decisions. And I’ve made an effort to start calling it out more.”

District Judge Julie Kocurek, Austin, Texas

On the state court level, threats against judges are growing rapidly and most are not related to politics, said Kocurek, who was shot outside her home in 2015. Kocurek’s assailant was a defendant who she had sentenced in a credit card fraud case.

“I was in the hospital for 40 days. I had 26 surgeries while I was in there. I mean, I should not be alive. I feel very, very, very fortunate to be alive. I didn’t want to go back to work, but I realized that this was an attack on our justice system and I had to go back. And so I’ve been on the bench since,” she said.

Texas lawmakers enacted a bill aimed at enhancing security for judges in 2017. Kocurek said data collected in Texas shows the volume of threats against judges in the state courts is growing rapidly. Many of the threats are related to child custody cases, she said.

“All of our civil judges get threats about their child custody cases. So that is a hotbed of retaliation. And the criminal courts are too because we’re dealing with such high-risk people anyway,” she said.

“I think it’s an important issue that is kind of the foundation of our democracy, or the third branch of government, for judges to feel safe, to follow the law and to uphold the rule of law and not feel intimidated or fearful. It just goes to the heart of what we do. And when judges don’t feel safe, it erodes our system, our justice system,” Kocurek said.

[about 10 more respondents]