Category: democrats
Ben Rhodes Heartbroken As Iranians March for Freedom
Iranians are revolting against the despotic regime that Barack Obama worked tirelessly to legitimize, and the former president’s foreign policy guru is struggling to contain his despair.
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The Moral Blackmailing of the American People
In Springfield, Illinois, in 1838, a young Abraham Lincoln delivered a powerful speech decrying the “ravages of mob law” throughout…
Somali Democrat Who Came To US Two Decades Ago Still Can’t Speak Clear English
The state senator has been in the U.S. since 1998
How To Destroy A Political Career In 6 Easy Steps (Tim Walz)
The host explains the strange link between him and Tim Walz
A red-state lawfare shakedown heads to the Supreme Court
The Republican Party claims to stand against lawfare — especially the obscene, rent-seeking variety that disguises itself as environmental justice. Yet that principle is about to be tested in a highly public and deeply embarrassing way.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on January 12 in Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish. Louisiana officials will face off against the Trump Justice Department and American energy producers in a landmark case over an attempted shakedown of oil companies for alleged responsibility for coastal erosion dating back to World War II.
Lawfare does not become acceptable because Republicans use it. And environmental shakedowns do not become conservative simply because they originate in a red state.
The basic claim is simple enough. Louisiana and several local governments have filed dozens of lawsuits alleging that oil and gas production over the last 80 years caused the erosion of the state’s coastline. But the structure and substance of these cases reveal something far more troubling.
Although the lawsuits were filed in the name of the state and its municipalities, control has effectively been handed over to politically connected plaintiffs’ lawyers — major donors who stand to reap enormous contingency fees. Through a so-called common interest agreement, the Louisiana attorney general’s office surrendered its obligation to independently assess the merits of the claims. In practice, the state abdicated its role to the trial-lawyer donor class.
That alone should raise alarms. The rest only makes it worse.
The lawsuits seek to impose liability for conduct that was lawful at the time and occurred as far back as eight decades ago. Ex post facto liability is fundamentally un-American, which is why almost no one attempts to defend it on the merits.
Even more awkward for Louisiana’s theory, virtually everyone outside the plaintiffs’ bar agrees on the primary cause of coastal erosion: decades of federal intervention by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which radically altered water flow in the Mississippi Delta. Louisiana once sued the federal government on exactly this basis. Now the same damage is somehow blamed on oil companies instead.
Because these claims reach back to the 1940s, they sweep in oil production carried out at the direction of the U.S. government to support the war effort — specifically the refining of aviation fuel for the military. It is a strange irony that after years of Democrat-led lawfare under the Biden administration, a red state has now delivered environmental litigation over World War II to the Supreme Court.
The hypocrisy is hard to miss.
The venue fight exposes the real game. Plaintiffs’ lawyers insist these cases remain in Louisiana state courts. The reason is obvious. Those courts are heavily influenced by the trial bar and have a record of staggering verdicts. Chevron was recently hit with a $745 million judgment in one such case.
Energy producers want the cases moved to federal court — not because victory is guaranteed but because federal courts are more likely to function as neutral arbiters. There is also a compelling jurisdictional reason: Much of the challenged activity involved federally directed wartime production. If any court belongs here, it is a federal one.
RELATED: America First energy policy is paying off at the pump
Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images
This kind of forum shopping should look familiar. It mirrors the Democrats’ strategy during the Biden years — carefully selecting friendly state courts to pursue political outcomes they could not secure through legislation. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) and Attorney General Liz Murrill (R) appear to have absorbed all the wrong lessons from all the wrong actors.
This is the same playbook used by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) when she charged President Trump in state court for conduct governed by federal law. It is the same model California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) embraced when he partnered with trial lawyers to sue energy companies for billions over alleged climate harms.
Step back from the legal details and a larger problem comes into focus.
President Trump’s agenda prioritizes American energy dominance. His actions abroad reinforce that priority. Yet Republicans in Louisiana are not merely opposing that objective — they are using the very lawfare tactics they claim to despise to undermine it.
For voters trying to apply a consistent ideological framework, the whiplash is real. When red states start behaving like California, it is fair to ask whether America First has drifted from a governing philosophy into a monetization strategy.
Lawfare does not become acceptable because Republicans use it. And environmental shakedowns do not become conservative simply because they originate in a red state. If the right intends to oppose lawfare, it needs to oppose it everywhere — especially when its own allies are the ones doing the shaking down.
Tim Walz Suggests Prosecutor Who Indicted Somali Fraudsters Should Be Fired: ‘We Are Under Assault’
Minnesota governor Tim Walz (D.) suggested the federal prosecutor behind the Somali fraud convictions in the state should be fired, accusing him of “defamation” for providing an estimate of the total amount defrauded from Medicaid programs.
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Mamdani’s Communist Housing Official Said Her ‘Goal Is To Have the Housing Actually Be Worth Less’
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D., N.Y.) top housing official, Cea Weaver, openly declared plans to destroy property values in New York City during a May 2021 podcast appearance alongside her new boss.
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California Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Steyer Funds Pro-Hamas Group That Calls Cops ‘Pigs’
Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist running for California governor, bankrolls a left-wing nonprofit that refers to police officers as “pigs” and has spouted anti-Semitic tropes in defense of Hamas.
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Accountability is not ‘political retribution’; it is justice
From Tom Fitton in The Washington Times: In America, the rule of law depends upon there being one system of justice for the entire country, but let’s be honest: Until now, that hasn’t been true. The Washington establishment has operated under a double standard: One for them and another for everyone else. James B. Comey, […]
The post Accountability is not ‘political retribution’; it is justice appeared first on Judicial Watch.
