Roy Moore accuser says lawsuit is frivolous, ‘political prop’
A woman who said she dated Alabama political figure Roy Moore as a teenager is asking a judge to resolve Moore’s defamation lawsuit against her as he begins a new Senate campaign. Lawyers for Debbie Wesson Gibson filed a motion this week saying Moore’s lawsuit is frivolous and should be dismissed. They said they believe Moore will use it as a “political prop” in his campaign. After losing the 2017 Senate race amid misconduct allegations, Moore sued Gibson and others who said Moore pursued romantic and sexual relationships with them when they were teens and he was in his 30s.Gibson said she was 17 when they dated. The lawsuit has sat with little action. Lawyers asked for a status conference and said defendants deserve to have their motions heard. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Martha Roby: Digital piracy – why it matters to our state.
I have always held a deep appreciation for the musicians, songwriters, television, and film producers who work hard to create the music, songs, shows, and movies people around the world know and love. At one point in my life, I even aspired to work in the Nashville music industry, which I ended up doing for period of time, but God had a different plan for my life long-term. Now, this dream has come full circle. With my role in Congress, I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, where I am in a unique position to advocate for the core copyright industries and related workforce that contribute so much to our economy and our culture. Just recently, the Judiciary Committee held a Copyright Office oversight hearing to focus on this issue that is critical to our economy. According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, core copyright industries, like music, television, and film, contribute more than $1 trillion to our country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and make up almost seven percent of the economy. In Alabama specifically, the music industry contributes $636.09 million to the GDP and supports more than 14,000 jobs. The motion picture and television industry is responsible for more than 10,200 jobs and $387 million total wages in our state. There are 958 music businesses in Alabama and nearly 720 motion picture and television businesses, including 381 production-related companies. So, you see, these industries have a significant impact on the economy, both on a state level and on the national level, but unfortunately, these hardworking, creative professionals don’t always receive the recognition and compensation they deserve due to several factors that we’re tackling in the House Judiciary Committee. First and foremost, we must work to ensure our copyright laws are up-to-date and address the needs of today’s hyper-connected, digital world. Many of these laws are decades old and no longer function as they were intended. This subject was covered in-depth in our recent committee hearing. Still, even when copyright status is in place, and even with the rise of legal streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, creative industries face significant challenges with illegal piracy in this digital age. A quick Internet search of the word “piracy” yields the following definition: the unauthorized use or reproduction of another’s work. The definition also includes a handful of synonyms, like illegal reproduction, plagiarism, copyright infringement, stealing, and theft. In our efforts to combat piracy and ensure the creative industry receives the compensation it deserves, we face several major hurdles: 1) It is shockingly easy to download, stream, and reproduce almost any movie, television show, song, etc. with a quick Internet search. 2) Since it is so easy and so common, some people don’t even realize they are doing anything wrong, much less committing a crime. 3) Sometimes, even when people know they’re doing something wrong, they don’t view it as being “that big of a deal.” But, illegally downloading and streaming someone else’s creative content is a big deal, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why it matters. Many, many more people and entities besides just big-name celebrities are involved in creating music, television shows, and movies. In fact, these creative industries support thousands of indirect jobs that most of us probably wouldn’t even think of. Consider a movie set, for example. From a personnel standpoint, all types of professionals are necessary to make a movie happen, from camera crews and lighting specialists to script writers, makeup and hair artists, florists, caterers, seamstresses, and the men and women who perform manual labor to build and take down sets. This doesn’t even account for the many dollars’ worth of materials required to put together any given movie set. I say all this to make the point that when an individual illegally streams, downloads, or shares creative content, they are stealing from all the many hardworking people who offer their labor, skills, and products to make a song, movie, or show happen – and most of these people aren’t the lead actor or actress; most of them go unnoticed at the very end of the long credits list. Of the more the 10,000 jobs in Alabama supported by the motion picture and television industry, the vast majority of them aren’t actors and actresses, but rather the many other professionals that don’t immediately come to mind. As we continue to enjoy our favorite music, movies and television shows, I hope we all strive to be responsible and ethical consumers, being mindful and cautious when using the Internet to download and stream to make sure we are only obtaining these creative works legally. Many Americans and Alabamians are severely and negatively impacted by illegal piracy, and I will remain engaged with this issue in my role on the House Judiciary Committee to ensure we are fiercely combatting these copyright infringements while improving the industry for its many hardworking individuals. Martha Roby represents Alabama’s Second Congressional District. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband Riley and their two children.
Supreme Court to rule on Trump bid to end Obama-era protection for illegal immigrant youth
Adding a high-stakes immigration case to its election-year agenda, the Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether President Donald Trump can terminate an Obama-era program shielding young illegal migrants from deportation. The justices’ order sets up legal arguments for late fall or early winter, with a decision likely by June 2020 as Trump campaigns for re-election. The president ordered an end to the program known as DACA in 2017, sparking protests and a congressional effort to salvage it. That effort failed, but federal courts in California, New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C., have blocked him from ending it immediately. A federal judge in Texas has declared the program is illegal, but refused to order it halted. The program — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — protects about 700,000 people, known as dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas. The DACA protections seem certain to remain in effect at least until the high court issues its decision. The administration had asked the court to take up and decide the appeals by the end of this month. The justices declined to do so and held on to the appeals for nearly five months with no action and no explanation. The court did nothing Friday to clear up the reasons for the long delay, although immigration experts have speculated that the court could have been waiting for other appellate rulings, legislation in Congress that would have put the program on a surer footing or additional administration action.“We are pleased the Supreme Court agreed that this issue needs resolution. We look forward to presenting our case before the court,” Justice Department spokesman Alexei Woltornist said. Since entering the White House, Trump has intermittently expressed a willingness to create a pathway to citizenship for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who’ve been protected by DACA. But he’s coupled it with demands to tighten legal immigration and to build his long wall along the Mexican border — conditions that Democrats have largely rejected. With the 2020 presidential and congressional election seasons underway or rapidly approaching, it seems unlikely that either party would be willing to compromise on immigration , a touchstone for both parties’ base voters. Three decades of Washington gridlock over the issue underscore how fraught it has been for lawmakers, and there’s little reason to think a deal is at hand. On the campaign trail, nearly all of the two dozen Democratic presidential candidates have pledged to work with Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally — beginning with the dreamers. On the other hand, Trump sees his hardline immigration policies as a winning campaign issue that can energize his supporters.The Obama administration created the DACA program in 2012 to provide work permits and protection from deportation to people who, in many cases, have no memory of any home other than the United States. The Trump administration has said it moved to end the program under the threat of a lawsuit from Texas and other states that raised the prospect of a chaotic end to DACA. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions determined the program to be unlawful on the grounds that President Barack Obama did not have the authority to adopt it in the first place. Sessions cited a 2015 ruling by the federal appeals court in New Orleans that blocked a separate immigration policy implemented by Obama and the expansion of the DACA program.Texas and other Republican-led states eventually did sue and won a partial victory in a federal court in Texas. Civil rights groups, advocates for immigrants and Democratic-led states all have sued to prevent the end of the program. In November, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the administration decision to end DACA was arbitrary and capricious. The appeals court noted that the federal government has a long and well-established history of using its discretion not to enforce immigration law against certain categories of people. While the federal government might be able to end DACA for policy reasons under its own discretion, it can’t do so based on Sessions’ faulty belief that the program exceeds federal authority, the court held. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
John Roberts’ Supreme Court defies easy political labels
Just hours after Chief Justice John Roberts handed Republicans a huge victory that protects even the most extreme partisan electoral districts from federal court challenge, critics blasted him as worthy of being impeached, a politician who should run for office and a traitor. But the attacks came from President Donald Trump’s allies and their anger was directed not at the Supreme Court’s partisan gerrymandering ruling, but at the day’s other big decision to keep a citizenship question off the 2020 census, at least for now. Trump tweeted from Japan that the census citizenship decision was “ridiculous.” What good is a high court conservative majority fortified by two Trump appointees, the critics seemed to be saying, if Roberts is not prepared to use it? That’s not how Roberts would characterize the court he now leads in name and as the justice closest to the center of a group otherwise divided between conservatives and liberals. He has talked repeatedly about the need to counter perceptions that the justices are just politicians in black robes, beholden to the president who appointed them. The flurry of action came at the end of a Supreme Court term in which the court welcomed a new justice, Brett Kavanaugh, who narrowly survived the most tumultuous confirmation hearings in nearly 30 years. The justices now begin a three-month summer recess. The court seem determined to maintain as low a profile as possible once Kavanaugh joined the bench in early October, finding a variety of ways to keep hot-button topics like abortion, guns, immigration and gay rights, that might divide conservatives from liberals, off the term’s calendar. “This tactic may have been an effort to keep things relatively quiet” following the Kavanaugh nomination, said Josh Blackman, a law professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. But one result of putting off some major decisions in Kavanaugh’s first term is a docket crammed with guns, immigration, gay rights and probably abortion in a session that begins in the fall and will come to a head in June 2020, amid the presidential election campaign. So far there is only a partial answer to the big question of how far and fast the court will move to the right now that the more conservative Roberts had taken the place of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired last year, as the swing justice. In the case of partisan gerrymandering, Roberts closed the federal courthouse door to lawsuits, a decision that mainly benefits Republicans whose districting plans had been challenged in several states. On the death penalty, the five conservatives appear much less willing to entertain calls for last-minute reprieves from execution. And in two cases the court divided along ideological lines in overturning precedents that had been on the books for more than 30 years. But Roberts was unwilling to join the conservatives to allow the citizenship question to proceed, although it is not yet clear whether the administration will continue pressing the legal case for the question. The reaction to the census ruling was swift. Former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka called Roberts “a traitor to Constitution.” American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp called for Roberts’ impeachment. Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted that “Roberts should quit and run for office.” The chief justice also declined to be the fifth conservative vote to overturn two past high court decisions about the power of federal agencies, and joined the liberals in ruling for an Alabama death row inmate who suffers from dementia. In emergency appeals, Roberts was the fifth vote to keep Trump from requiring asylum seekers to enter the country at established checkpoints and the fifth vote to prevent Louisiana abortion clinic regulations from taking effect. Twenty-one decisions, or nearly a third of all the cases the court heard since October, were by 5-4 or 5-3 votes. But of those, only seven united the conservatives against dissenting liberals. In 10 others, the cohesive bloc of liberals attracted the vote of a conservative justice. The lack of high-profile cases undoubtedly contributed to the relatively small number of ideologically divided outcomes, said David Cole, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which was on the winning side of the citizenship case and the losing side of the gerrymandering one.Cole said the 5-4 decisions that cross ideological lines “send a message that this is a court that is not just determined by partisan ideology, but is applying law.” Roberts sought to reinforce that perception of the court in comments in November, speaking out after Trump called a judge who ruled against his asylum policy an “Obama judge.” Roberts responded: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” Commenting on the day before Thanksgiving, he said an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” It could be several years before the impact of a more conservative court, assuming no changes in membership, becomes clear. But one fear among the liberal justices, and liberals more generally, is a push to restrict if not overturn abortion rights the Supreme Court first declared in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. At least one conservative justice has the decision in his sights. Justice Clarence Thomas at one point this term labeled it as “notoriously incorrect.” The first term of any new justice often has fewer big cases than normal, but the court’s desire to stay away from controversy was heightened by Kavanaugh’s difficult confirmation following allegations he sexually assaulted a woman when they were both in high school. He denied doing anything improper. When he arrived at the court, his colleagues seemed to welcome him warmly. Justice Elena Kagan, his neighbor on the bench, joked with the new justice and made a point of shaking his hand at the end of his first day of arguments. Kavanaugh’s parents were often in the courtroom, especially when their only child announced an opinion. The new justice “stuck pretty close to the chief in a lot of cases,” said Supreme
