The Constitution and the Presidency
John Castro is running for President of the United States of America. He is not going to win. He may, however, have a huge impact on the race. Castro filed a lawsuit in the Dane County Texas Circuit Court, John Castro v. Donald Trump, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars Trump from appearing on the ballot. The Fourteenth Amendment states, in relevant part, that no person shall hold any office under the United States who, having previously taken an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same. Castro also filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case immediately due to the election implications. On Wednesday this week, the Court agreed to hear the case.
Trump is alleged to have engaged in an insurrection. He is charged with insurrection in the Washington, D.C. Courts. The Supreme Court will have to determine whether and how this provision of the Fourteenth Amendment applies, and what the process is for determining whether an official has “engaged in insurrection.” Interesting times.
Due Process
George Jarkesy once operated a couple of hedge funds. In 2011, the SEC began an investigation of Jarkesy and determined that he had violated the Securities Act of 1933 by misrepresenting the identity of his funds’ auditor and the value in the funds. The SEC charged Jarkesy administratively and tried him in the SEC’s in-house administrative law tribunal. The tribunal found Jarkesy in violation, fined him, and banned him from future trading. Jarkesy then sought judicial review in the U.S. District Court arguing that the SEC administrative process violated his Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury. The case became Jarkesy v. The Securities Exchange Commission. The U.S. District Court sided with the SEC, but the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that “the SEC’s enforcement action is akin to traditional actions at law to which the jury-trial right attaches.”
Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. This case, along with Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which I wrote about last week here, represents a threat to the administrative state. With the current conservative makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court we can (hopefully) expect the administrative state to take a hit.
The censorship-industrial complex
When COVID was hot, some doctors tried to prescribe Ivermectin as a treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration disagreed with treating COVID with Ivermectin and took various actions to shut it down, including a social media campaign telling people that only horses take Ivermectin. This is not true. Ivermectin is a drug that has been safely used in humans for many years for various maladies. A group of doctors sued the FDA arguing that the FDA’s social media posts interfered with their ability to exercise professional medical judgement. The FDA moved to dismiss the doctors’ lawsuit claiming sovereign immunity. The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has now ruled that the lawsuit can proceed. The Court stated, “The FDA is not a physician. It has authority to inform, announce and apprise—but not to endorse, denounce or advise.” The Court also said, “Even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond the FDA’s statutory authority.”
I have written previously here, here and here about the government’s censorship efforts. This is another example of the methods employed.