donal brown

A Missouri judge ruled that the right wing website The Gateway Pundit must contend with a jury trial for allegedly defaming two Georgia election workers. The website’s publisher Jim Hoft had sought to dismiss the lawsuit by claiming he was defamed by various progressive sources and that the lawsuit was an attack on his right to free speech. The election workers received death threats after Hoft and others accused them of election fraud. (Gateway Journalism

Former president Donald Trump’s elite strike force of lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis failed in promoting their preposterous claims of election fraud in the courts and are now under investigation by the Justice Department and a prosecutor in Georgia. A legal advocacy group, 65 Project, is dedicated to bring accountability to these three and other lawyers attempting to undermine democracy in the 2020 presidential election. (Politico, July 26, 2023, by Ankush Khardori)

Grayson Clary, of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, July 26, 2023, writes that with the U.S. Supreme Court docket this year, the First Amendment “gained important ground.” Clary cited the decision in Counterman v. Colorado making it more difficult to bring meritless harassment allegations against journalists. And Twitter v. Taamneh and United States v. Hansen clarified that the justices will consider the First Amendment rights of reporters in interpreting aiding-and-abetting liability. Other

In admitting he defamed election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is resting his defense on arguing that his statements about voter fraud in Georgia were protected speech. He also denied his statements caused harm to Freeman or Moss. (CNN, July 26, 2023, by Katelyn Polantz and Shawna Mizelle) Giuliani’s lawyer said that they were not so much admitting the defamation but acting strategically to keep Moss and Freeman

Bookstores and national bookseller associations are contesting a Texas law on sexually explicit books in school libraries. The law requires book sellers to rate books on the basis of sexual references. (The Texas Tribune, July 25, 2023, by Rebecca Schneid) Tennessee teachers are suing in federal court claiming that a law restricting what they can teach about race, gender and bias is unconstitutionally vague. The law was passed in the wake of protests after the