“Trump pardons a convicted fraudster for the second time,” reports The New York Times. “In 2021, a convicted fraudster named Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence. Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, prosecutors said, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She and her brother were convicted in 2024 in an unrelated fraud.” Now, Trump has pardoned her yet again, after yet more criminal activity.

This was just one of a “raft of pardons. Among the lucky recipients: a man whose daughter had given millions to a Trump-backed super PAC, a former governor of Puerto Rico, a former F.B.I. agent who had pleaded guilty in a political corruption case and a California woman whom the president had granted relief once before.”

Releasing people who commit crimes from prison results in more crimes.
When Italy released inmates early, that increased its crime rate a lot, according to a 2014 study. (See Alessandro Barbarino & Giovanni Mastrobuono, the Incapacitation Effect of Incarceration from Several Italian Collective Pardons, American Economic Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-37 (2014)). Other studies find similar results.

Criminals often commit more crimes after being released. Nationally, 81.9% of all state prisoners released in 2008 were subsequently arrested within a decade, including 74.5% of those 40 or older at the time of their release. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Prisoners in 24 States Released in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008-2018), pg. 4, Table 4)).

In late November, Trump granted clemency to a CEO convicted of fraud, which wiped out his duty to pay $15 million in court-ordered restitution.

Recently, Trump pardoned a Texas Democratic Congressman indicted for corruption. As a result, Democrats will likely keep that seat in Congress. Political analysts say that Trump’s pardon of  Congressman Henry Cuellar “inadvertently compromised” the Republican “party’s ability to flip one competitive seat by pardoning its congressman, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.” “Trump’s pardon of Cuellar” has shifted Cook Political Report’s rating of the race in Texas’ 28th Congressional district “from toss up to lean Democrat,” notes political analyst Erin Covey in the Cook Political Report.

By Katelynn Richardson

A Reagan-appointed federal judge called President Donald Trump an “authoritarian” during a hearing on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge William Young, who is overseeing a case challenging the administration’s attempts to deport pro-Palestine protesters on college campuses, indicated he would issue a ruling restricting the government’s efforts, according to Reuters.

The administration’s efforts came in response to at times violent protests that erupted on college campuses after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which left over 1,200 people dead.

“We cast around the word ‘authoritarian,’” Young said, per Reuters. “I don’t, in this context, treat that in a pejorative sense, and I use it carefully, but it’s fairly clear that this president believes, as an authoritarian, that when he speaks, everyone, everyone in Article II is going to toe the line absolutely.”

“It’s bizarre that this judge is broadcasting his intent to engage in left-wing activism against the democratically-elected President of the United States,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “President Trump will always put American citizens first, which includes removing national security threats from our homeland.”

Young said Trump’s cabinet secretaries “have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”

“I find it breathtaking that I have been compelled on the evidence to find the conduct of such high-level officers of our government — cabinet secretaries — conspired to infringe the First Amendment rights of people with such rights here in the United States,” Young said, according to Politico. (RELATED: Reagan Appointed Judge Rules Trump Admin Deportations Over Anti-Israel Protests Unconstitutional)

Article III Project founder Mike Davis said on X that Young was a “liberal judge was picked by Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry in 1985” who timed his retirement to let Joe Biden, rather than Trump, pick his replacement.

Ted Kennedy and John Kerry were the Democratic senators representing Massachusetts in 1985. When a federal trial judge is appointed, it is usually a lawyer recommended by the senators in that state, who the President then nominates. But if the senators and the president are in opposing parties, they often have to compromise on who is picked. Since both the senators in Massachusetts were Democrats, they likely would not have signed off on President Reagan picking a conservative Republican. As a result, some Reagan appointees to the bench in Massachusetts were rather liberal.

This Massachusetts liberal judge was picked by Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry in 1985.

And Judge William Young strategically semi-retired in 2021 to let President Biden replace him.

He is clearly incapable of being objective, as evidenced by the most bizarre opinion ever: https://t.co/wX5fbv5iMh pic.twitter.com/KQ0bg9dziV

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) October 1, 2025

Opposition to the administration’s policy relies on “a basic misunderstanding of the First Amendment, which under binding Supreme Court precedent applies differently in the immigration context than it otherwise does domestically,” the government has argued in court.

In October, Young issued an opinion finding lawfully present noncitizens in the U.S. have the same free speech rights as American citizens.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acted to “misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech,” Young wrote.

“They did so in order to strike fear into similarly situated non-citizen pro Palestinian individuals, pro actively (and effectively) curbing lawful pro-Palestinian speech and intentionally denying such individuals (including the plaintiffs here) the freedom of speech that is their right,” he wrote.

Bills pending in the Virginia state legislature could raise the state income tax a lot. The most likely to pass bill would increase the state income tax rate from 5.75% to 8% on incomes over $600,000 and 10% on incomes over $1,000,000. Another bill would impose an additional 3.8% tax (a “net investment income tax”) on most income above $500,000. If both bills pass, Virginia would have an 13.8% tax rate. That would be higher than what is currently the highest state tax rate in America, the 13.3% rate in California for households with million-dollar incomes. It would be far higher than the top tax rates in the region around Virginia, such as the 3.99% tax rate in North Carolina, the 4.82% rate in West Virginia, and the zero percent tax rate in Tennessee, which has no state income tax.

The most likely to pass bill is HB 979, introduced by Delegate Vivian Watts, the powerful chair of the Finance Committee in Virginia’s House of Delegates. HB 979 “establishes two new tax brackets beginning on and after January 1, 2027, that tax income in excess of $600,000 but not in excess of $1,000,000 at a rate of eight percent and income in excess of $1,000,000 at a rate of 10 percent.”

“Something like this has an excellent chance of passing now,” said a Virginian who spent years lobbying Virginia legislators about tax and other issues.

Virginia is now one of the higher-tax states both in terms of dollars paid, and tax burdens compared to other states.

But HB 979’s sponsor, Delegate Watts does not seem to realize this. She is a veteran legislator who has served since 1996, when Virginia was a low-tax state. On her web site, she expresses the outdated belief that Virginia has unusually low taxes, which hasn’t been true for years. For example, she says Virginia has “low taxes (44th per $1000 of personal income.” That’s in an article first posted on her website several years ago, when Virginia already had a higher state income tax rate (5.75%) than a majority of states (7 states had no state income tax at all in 2020, two other states only taxed interest and dividends, and others had much lower rates than Virginia, like North Dakota’s 2.9% maximum rate). Unlike Virginia, some states have no sales tax, such as Montana, New Hampshire, Alaska, Delaware, and Oregon.

Virginia is already a somewhat high-tax state. The Tax Foundation notes that in 2022, Virginia ranked 20^th in state and local tax collections per capita, $6845. In 2025, Virginia ranked a bit below average in state tax competitiveness, due to higher-than-average levels of taxation.

Times have changed, but not Delegate Watts’ outdated impression that Virginia is a low-tax state. So she is eager to raise tax rates, which could result in Virginia having much higher tax rates than neighboring states, like Kentucky (which has a 3.5% maximum state tax rate) and North Carolina (which has a 3.99% tax rate). Setting Virginia taxes higher than neighboring states will result in some wealthy people relocating to those states to avoid Virginia taxes on their investment income. People who work in Danville or Virginia Beach can move their home to nearby North Carolina to avoid higher taxes. That would shrink Virginia’s tax base and leave Virginia worse off.

Delegate Watts may not have given much thought to that possibility, because for almost all of her time in the Virginia legislature, neighboring states had higher income tax rates. North Carolina once had an 8% top income tax rate. Even in 2015, Virginia still had lower state income tax rates than North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Back then, the top marginal tax rate was 6.5% in West Virginia, 6% in Kentucky, and 5.8% in North Carolina, compared to 5.75% in Virginia. But since then, most of Virginia’s neighbors have cut tax rates a lot, unlike Virginia, reducing tax rates to below 4% or 5%.

Due to high taxes and high living costs in Virginia, a modest number of people are already moving from Virginia to West Virginia and states south of Virginia like North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. That exodus could grow into a flood if taxes in Virginia go up to 8% or 10% from 5.75%, making it much more expensive to live in Virginia.

When Maryland raised taxes on millionaires, many moved out of state, resulting in Maryland raising less revenue as a result. The Tax Foundation described how Maryland’s tax base shrank:

The Comptroller of Maryland has reported that the number of “millionaire” returns tumbled sharply between 2007 and 2008, a 30% drop in filers and 22% drop in declared income. Rather than income taxes from this group rising by $106 million, they fell by $257 million….One-in-eight millionaires who filed a Maryland tax return in 2007 filed no return in 2008….A Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysis of federal tax return data on people who migrated from one state to another found that Maryland lost $1 billion of its net tax base in 2008 by residents moving to other states.

Maryland’s tax on millionaires didn’t raise tax rates to 10%, as the proposed Virginia tax increase would. But it was still enough to drive rich people out of the state, and reduce the state’s tax base, leaving Maryland worse off.

Delegate Watts’ 10% tax rate could do even more damage to Virginia’s economy, because it would give rich people an even bigger incentive to leave, and thus shrink Virginia’s tax base even more than Maryland’s tax base shrank. It could end up shrinking both Virginia tax revenue and the size of Virginia’s economy.

Another pending bill — by Delegate Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, HB 378 — would impose a 3.8% “net investment income tax” on most income above $500,000. Add this 3.8% tax to Delegate Watts’ 10% tax rate, and you get a 13.8% top tax rate in Virginia. This 3.8% tax rate would apply to most income above $500,000, because it applies to interest, dividends, and capital gains, as well as business income, which basically all high-income taxpayers have, and accounts for much of their income. Taxpayers making $10 million or more get about 50% of their income from capital gains, about 25% from business income, and over 90% of their income is subject to tax by HB 378.

Investors are usually more mobile than wage earners, so raising taxes on investors makes even more of them leave the state, and results in even more shrinkage of the tax base.

Raising marginal tax rates in Virginia to 10% or 13.8% would harm Virginia by reducing the migration of prosperous and productive people into Virginia from Maryland. Right now, more people move from Maryland to Virginia than from Virginia to Maryland, resulting a net migration of thousands of people from Maryland to Virginia in recent years. But Marylanders would be less likely to move to Virginia if Virginia had higher taxes than Maryland.

By Alexis Lapp

Former Democratic turned Independent Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was hit with a lawsuit from the ex-wife of her former bodyguard, Matthew Ammel, according to documents filed in a North Carolina Federal Court.

Heather Ammel alleged Sinema was involved in an affair with her then-husband, Matthew Ammel, according to the lawsuit. She claimed Sinema’s allegedly inappropriate behavior with her husband, which included lavish trips, directly contributed to their separation in 2024. The couple was married for 14 years, according to the documents.

The lawsuit was filed late in 2025 and moved to a federal court in January, WRAL reported.

Along with allegedly taking the former member of her staff on frequent solo rendezvous, Heather Ammel accused the former Senator of paying for her ex-husband to obtain “psychedelic treatment.”

The lawsuit cited alleged messages between Sinema and Matthew Ammel. He said he was intimidated by Sinema, and she allegedly responded that she seeks only to be “intimidating to her opponents,” according to the documents.

She is accused of advising him to bring MDMA drugs, also known as ecstasy or molly, on a work trip so she could “guide him through a psychedelic experience.” (RELATED: Gonna Be A Sinema-tic: Thorn In Democrats’ Side Back To haunt Her Party Colleagues)

Sinema told her security guard to bring molly with him and that she’d guide him through it. Now his ex-wife is suing her. pic.twitter.com/FHNzE7PGS0

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 15, 2026

In May 2024, Sinema allegedly paid for Matthew Ammel to receive psychedelic treatment in Nashville, Tennessee, before flying him out to Napa Valley, California, to provide security for a concert. The lawsuit further claimed that she and Matthew Ammel resided together in a private Airbnb.

Sinema has spoken out in the past about her support for Ibogaine, a psychedelic which is developed from the African shrub plant, Politico previously reported.

The lawsuit claims that early in 2024, the two messaged each other while Matthew Ammel was at a baseball game. Matthew Ammell allegedly wrote that he wanted to start a “f*ck the troops” chant, and Sinema allegedly responded that she would “f*ck the hot ones.”

WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 11: U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) wears a protective mask while arriving to the U.S. Capitol on December 11, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)

In June 2024, Sinema allegedly offered Matthew Ammel a position in her U.S. Senate staff as a Defense and National Security fellow, the documents read. (RELATED: ‘The Hypocrisy Is The Point’: Kyrsten Sinema Is Having The Last Laugh On The Filibuster)

Before resigning, Sinema’s former head of security expressed concerns in 2023 that Sinema was allegedly having “sexual relations with other security members,” the lawsuit stated.

Heather Ammel also claims her husband suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries as a result of his prior job in the U.S. Army.

Sinema left the Democratic party and registered as an Independent in 2022 during her time in the Senate. In 2024, she announced she would not be running for reelection. She is a senior advisor at a Washington, D.C.-based law firm as of publication.

Sinema did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, according to Politico.

A Virginia legislator apparently thinks the parole board isn’t releasing enough inmates. So he has introduced a bill, HB318, that would let legislators, rather than the governor, pick many of the parole board’s members. His bill would also make it much easier to parole inmates serving life sentences — which could result in the release of many killers. The bill would also make it hard not to parole inmates who committed crimes as juveniles, if their continuing dangerousness is due to “the nature of the offense” they committed or other factors beyond their “demonstrated ability to control.”

Right now, the Virginia Parole Board has five members, all picked by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. Delegate Patrick Hope’s HB318 would expand the parole board to 10 members, and let individual legislators pick 5 of them. “Three of” those five would “be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates,” and “two of” them would “be appointed by the Chair of the Senate Committee on Rules.” (The Speaker of the House is Don Scott, who in 2020 proposed a failed bill that would have required the release of many inmates based on their age, leaving the parole board with no discretion to block their release even if they were still dangerous).

Letting individual legislators pick members of the parole board is a radical departure from existing Virginia law. As the Virginia Mercury notes, right now, the governor appoints the members of “Virginia’s governing boards and commissions. Virginia law gives governors the power to appoint people to these groups, and remove them.” HB 318 would eliminate the governor’s ability to remove members of the parole board, crossing out existing statutory language stating that the “members of the Board shall serve at the pleasure of the Governor.” That would reduce their political accountability, which could be a constitutional separation of powers violation. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Myers v. United States (1926), the president has the right to fire most high-ranking executive branch officials without cause, although not (for the time being) the ability to fire members of independent commissions without cause (the Supreme Court is currently considering whether to overturn its 1935 ruling that members of independent agencies can’t be fired without cause).

Under the federal constitution, giving individual legislators the ability to pick members of a powerful board  — like a parole board — would be unconstitutional. Giving them that power would violate both the constitutional separation of powers — by mixing legislative and executive functions and aggrandizing the legislative branch at the expense of the executive — and also violate the federal constitution’s Appointments Clause, which lets the President appoint important federal officials, like the members of the Federal Election Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court struck down the system by which members of Congress directly appointed Federal Election Commission commissioners. The Supreme Court ruled that only the President could pick members of a board or commission who have “substantial powers” as opposed to merely “investigative and informative” functions. “Legislative power, as distinguished from executive power, is the authority to make laws, but not to enforce them or appoint the agents charged with the duty of such enforcement. The latter are executive functions,” the Supreme Court said.

Later, a federal appeals court ruled that “Congress exceeded its legislative authority” and violated the separation of powers “when it placed its agents, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, on [an] independent Commission as non-voting ex officio members.” (See Federal Election Commission v. National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund, 6 F.3d 821 (D.C. Cir. 1993)).

Having the legislature pick the members of the parole board — which has “substantial powers,” not just an advisory or “informative” role like some Virginia boards and commissions — seems similarly at odds with separation of powers principles. Like the federal constitution, the Virginia state constitution has a separation of powers provision, Article III, Section 1.

On the other hand, HB 318 might not violate the Virginia constitution’s Appointments Clause (Article V, Section 10), even though it generally gives the governor, not the legislature, the power to appoint state officials. The Virginia constitution’s Appointments Clause is phrased differently than the federal constitution’s Appointments Clause (in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2). The Supreme Court’s Buckley v. Valeo decision relied partly on the federal Appointments Clause, which doesn’t apply to the Virginia legislature or parole board.

It is not clear whether the Virginia state Appointments Clause even applies to a multi-member body like a parole board, since the state constitution refers to “the head” of a division or department. The Virginia state constitution’s Appointments Clause says that “‘Except as may be otherwise provided in this Constitution, the Governor shall appoint each officer serving as the head of an administrative department or division of the executive branch of the government.” By contrast, the federal appointments clause treats the members of multi-member agencies as collectively the “Heads of Department” of their agency, according to the Supreme Court. (see Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (2010)). The federal Appointments Clause gives the President, or “Heads of Departments”, respectively, the ability to appoint “Officers of the United States.”

HB 318 would make it much easier to parole murderers and others serving life sentences. Under current law, four members of the parole board have to vote to release an inmate serving a life sentence. (See Va. Code § 53.1-134.1). That means a lot when there are only five parole board members — almost everyone on the parole board has to agree that an inmate is no longer dangerous. But requiring four votes to parole an inmate means nothing when there are ten parole board members. Under HB 318, many parole board members could view an inmate as dangerous, yet the inmate could still be released with the support of a few parole board members.

That problem is made a lot worse by another provision of HB 318. It also bars the parole board from denying parole based on “the nature of the offense” committed by a juvenile offender, even if the inmate is a serial killer and rapist whose offense demonstrates a deep-seated compulsion to kill and rape, and a psychological inability to change his dangerousness to the community. For example, the bill states, “The Board shall not deny parole for a juvenile offender based on factors outside of his demonstrated ability to change, such as the nature of the offense or any effects resulting from the commission of such offense.” How do you “demonstrate” that a serial killer has the “ability to change” his compulsive desire to kill people? Why does his lack of “demonstrated ability to change” his dangerousness justify his release?

An inmate’s dangerousness is sometimes revealed by “the nature of the offense,” like when the inmate is a serial killer, who killed again and again after previously being released from prison. A classic example is Kenneth McDuff. At the age of 19, after being paroled, McDuff and an accomplice kidnapped three teenagers. He shot and killed two boys, then killed a girl after raping and torturing her. Later, after being paroled yet again, he murdered as many as 15 additional women.

To keep such killings from happening, a parole board needs to take into account “the nature of the offense” as one of many factors, in order to avoid releasing dangerous inmates. But HB318 would keep parole boards from taking that into account.

Juvenile offenders spend years in prison before being eligible for parole, so people may assume they have aged out of crime. But many inmates haven’t.

Most inmates commit more crimes after being released, even when they have already served over ten years in prison. 57.5% of federal inmates imprisoned for violence for ten years or more were arrested yet again after being released, according to a 2022 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. (See Recidivism of Federal Violent Offenders Released in 2010, pg. 33 (Feb. 2022)). Nationally, 81.9% of all state prisoners released in 2008 were subsequently arrested within a decade, including 74.5% of those 40 or older at the time of their release and 56.1% of those age 55 or over at the time of their release. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Prisoners in 24 States Released in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008-2018), pg. 4, Table 4)).

These arrest figures understate the crime rate among released inmates, because most crimes never even lead to an arrest: the FBI says only 45.5% of violent crimes were cleared in 2019, and only 17.2% of property crimes.

NOTE: The Virginia legislature and parole board are subject to the state constitution’s separation of powers provision and appointments clause, but not the federal constitution’s separation of powers requirements or its appointments clause.

By Katelynn Richardson

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed inclined on Tuesday to back state efforts to protect women’s sports.

The justices considered challenges to Idaho and West Virginia laws that prohibit boys from playing in girls’ sports during oral arguments that lasted over three hours.

Both cases question whether the laws violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, while West Virginia’s case also weighs whether the state’s law violates Title IX.

Justice Samuel Alito asked whether having separate sports divisions requires an understanding of what it means to be a man or woman.

“How can a court determine whether there is discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?” he asked.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is known for coaching his daughters’ basketball teams, asked Kathleen Marnett, attorney representing one of the transgender athletes, to look at the “big picture.”

“One of the great successes in America over the past 50 years has been the growth of women and girls’ sports. It’s inspiring,” Kavanaugh said. “Some states and the federal government, the NCAA and the Olympic committee, think that allowing trans women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success and will create unfairness.”

“For the individual girl who does not make the team, or doesn’t get on the stand for the metal, or doesn’t make all-league, there’s a harm there,” he said. (RELATED: Trump Admin Bars Visas From Men Competing In Women’s Sports)

“How we approach the situation of looking at it not as boys versus girls, but whether or not there should be an exception with respect to the definition of girls…. That would, if we adopted that, that would have to apply across the board, and not simply to the area of athletics,” Chief Justice John Roberts said.

Roberts suggested that the landmark 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County ruling expanding sex discrimination to include gender identity and sexual orientation in the context of employment may not apply to the women’s sports cases.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, author of the Bostock ruling, raised some of the most critical questions of the conservative justices.

He questioned at one point whether transgender status should be viewed as its own class, given the “history” of discrimination against these individuals.

Some justices also questioned how any “scientific uncertainty” about athletic advantages of transgender athletes factors into the case.

“Is treating someone who is transgender, but who does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done…the same threat to physical competition and safety and all the reasons the state puts forward – that’s actually a different class, says this individual,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst. “So you’re not treating the class the same. And how do you respond to that?”

By Hudson Crozier

A protester accused of violence outside Portland, Oregon’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility is a sex offender with a record of illegally failing to report as one, documents show.

Thirty-nine year-old Andrew Simmons was charged with harassment and disorderly conduct on Friday and released on bond within 24 hours after allegedly pushing a bike officer during a demonstration, according to a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) statement and jail records. Simmons was also convicted in 2014 and 2020 of failing to report as a sex offender in Oregon, and the state dropped two more counts of the same charge against him in 2023, court documents first reported by journalist Andy Ngo show. (RELATED: ‘Where Are We Looting?’: Meet The Portland Leftists Who Keep Getting Arrested And Released)

Records do not yet list an attorney for Simmons’ current case. It is unclear where and when his original sex offense occurred.

Simmons’ arrest marks another of several Portland protest defendants over the past year who had prior criminal histories and were swiftly released by liberal Multnomah County. Transgender rioter Julie Winters was given a “time served” sentence in December after swinging and throwing a butcher knife around federal officers during a Portland anti-ICE protest, the latest of several cases on Winters’ record, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

Police have made at least 79 arrests related to anti-ICE protests in Portland that began after President Donald Trump returned to office, the PPB said Friday. Simmons’ was the only arrest the bureau reported for Friday.

Video footage from Friday night showed dozens gathered in a crowd, some wearing black clothing or gas masks. Police in yellow uniforms were seen surrounding and restraining an unidentified person on the ground after an off-camera altercation as other protesters surrounded them, blowing whistles.

“Do you guys really want to do this? Do you guys really want to do this?” someone shouted in the video.

Police arrested another protester the following day on a harassment charge, though she was released that night, and another who is still in custody on unlawful use of a weapon and coercion counts, jail records show. Both arrests were based on warrants from before the protest, the PPB said.

A progressive Virginia legislator apparently thinks the parole board isn’t releasing enough inmates. So he has introduced a bill, HB318, that would let progressive legislators, rather than the governor, pick many of the parole board’s members. His bill would also make it much easier to parole inmates serving life sentences — which could result in the release of many killers — and hard not to parole inmates who committed crimes as juveniles, if their continuing dangerousness is due to “the nature of the offense” they committed or other factors beyond their “demonstrated ability to control.”

Right now, the Virginia Parole Board has five members, all picked by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. Delegate Patrick Hope’s HB318 would expand the parole board to 10 members, and let individual legislators pick 5 of them. “Three of” those five would “be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Delegates,” and “two of” them would “be appointed by the Chair of the Senate Committee on Rules.” (The Speaker of the House is Don Scott, who in 2020 proposed a failed bill that would have required the release of many inmates based on their age, leaving the parole board with no discretion to block their release even if they were still dangerous).

Letting individual legislators pick members of the parole board is a radical departure from existing Virginia law. As the Virginia Mercury notes, right now, the governor appoints the members of “Virginia’s governing boards and commissions. Virginia law gives governors the power to appoint people to these groups, and remove them.” HB 318 would eliminate the governor’s ability to remove members of the parole board, crossing out existing statutory language stating that the “members of the Board shall serve at the pleasure of the Governor.” That would reduce their political accountability, which could be a constitutional separation of powers violation. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Myers v. United States (1926), the president has the right to fire most high-ranking executive branch officials without cause, although not (for the time being) the ability to fire members of independent boards and commissions without cause (the Supreme Court is currently considering whether to overturn its 1935 ruling that members of independent agencies can’t be fired without cause).

Under the federal constitution, giving individual legislators the ability to pick members of a powerful board would be unconstitutional. Giving them that power would violate both the constitutional separation of powers — by mixing legislative and executive functions and aggrandizing the legislative branch at the expense of the executive — and also violate the federal constitution’s Appointments Clause, which lets the President appoint important federal officials, like the members of the Federal Election Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court struck down the system by which members of Congress directly appointed Federal Election Commission commissioners. The Supreme Court ruled that only the President could pick members of a board or commission who have “substantial powers” as opposed to merely “investigative and informative” functions. “Legislative power, as distinguished from executive power, is the authority to make laws, but not to enforce them or appoint the agents charged with the duty of such enforcement. The latter are executive functions,” the Supreme Court said.

Later, a federal appeals court ruled that “Congress exceeded its legislative authority” and violated the separation of powers “when it placed its agents, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, on [an] independent Commission as non-voting ex officio members.” (See Federal Election Commission v. National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund, 6 F.3d 821 (D.C. Cir. 1993)).

Having the legislature pick the members of the parole board — which has “substantial powers,” not just an advisory or “informative” role like some Virginia boards and commissions — seems similarly at odds with separation of powers principles. Like the federal constitution, the Virginia state constitution has a separation of powers provision, Article III, Section 1.

On the other hand, HB 318 might not violate the Virginia constitution’s Appointments Clause (Article V, Section 10), even though it generally gives the governor, not the legislature, the power to appoint state officials. The Virginia Appointments Clause is phrased differently than the federal constitution’s Appointments Clause (in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2). I don’t know whether the state Appointments Clause even applies to a multi-member body like a parole board, since the state constitution refers to “the head” of a division or department. The Virginia state constitution’s Appointments Clause says that “‘Except as may be otherwise provided in this Constitution, the Governor shall appoint each officer serving as the head of an administrative department or division of the executive branch of the government.” By contrast, the federal appointments clause treats the members of multi-member agencies as collectively the “Heads of Department” of their agency, according to the Supreme Court. (see Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (2010)). The federal Appointments Clause gives the President, or “Heads of Departments”, respectively the ability to appoint “Officers of the United States.”

HB 318 would make it much easier to parole murderers and others serving life sentences. Under current law, four members of the parole board have to vote to release an inmate serving a life sentence. (See Va. Code § 53.1-134.1). That means a lot when there are only five parole board members — almost everyone on the parole board has to agree that an inmate is no longer dangerous. But requiring four votes to parole an inmate means nothing when there are ten parole board members. Under HB 318, many parole board members could view an inmate as dangerous, yet the inmate could still be released with the support of a few parole board members.

That problem is radically worsened by another provision of HB 318. It also bars the parole board from denying parole based on “the nature of the offense” committed by a juvenile offender, even if the inmate is a serial killer and rapist whose offense demonstrates a deep-seated compulsion to kill and rape, and a psychological inability to change his dangerousness to the community. For example, the bill states, “The Board shall not deny parole for a juvenile offender based on factors outside of his demonstrated ability to change, such as the nature of the offense or any effects resulting from the commission of such offense.” How do you “demonstrate” that a serial killer has the “ability to change” his compulsive desire to kill people? Why does his lack of “demonstrated ability to change” his dangerousness justify his release?

An inmate’s dangerousness is sometimes revealed by “the nature of the offense,” like when the inmate is a serial killer, who killed again and again after previously being released from prison. A classic example is Kenneth McDuff. At the age of 19, after being paroled, McDuff and an accomplice kidnapped three teenagers. He shot and killed two boys, then killed a girl after raping and torturing her. Later, after being paroled yet again, he murdered as many as 15 additional women.

To keep such killings from happening, a parole board needs to take into account “the nature of the offense” as one of many factors, in order to avoid releasing dangerous inmates. But HB318 would keep parole boards from taking that into account.

Juvenile offenders spend years in prison before being eligible for parole, so people may assume they have aged out of crime. But many inmates haven’t.

Most inmates commit more crimes after being released, even when they have already served over ten years in prison. 57.5% of federal inmates imprisoned for violence for ten years or more were arrested yet again after being released, according to a 2022 report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. (See Recidivism of Federal Violent Offenders Released in 2010, pg. 33 (Feb. 2022)). Nationally, 81.9% of all state prisoners released in 2008 were subsequently arrested within a decade, including 74.5% of those 40 or older at the time of their release and 56.1% of those age 55 or over at the time of their release. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Prisoners in 24 States Released in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008-2018), pg. 4, Table 4)).

These arrest figures understate the crime rate among released inmates, because most crimes never even lead to an arrest: the FBI says only 45.5% of violent crimes were cleared in 2019, and only 17.2% of property crimes.

NOTE: The Virginia legislature is subject to the state constitution’s separation of powers provision, but not the federal constitution’s separation of powers provision.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled that a wife’s right to carry a gun was wrongly denied because of her spouse’s behavior. Below is an except from Guinane v. Chief of Police of Manchester-by-the-Sea, a unanimous decision by the Appeals Court on January 9:

In October 2022, Barbara Guinane applied to the chief of police of Manchester-by-the-Sea (chief) for a license to carry firearms (LTC) …. The chief found Guinane unsuitable and denied the application. The chief did so based on recent incidents in which Guinane’s husband had acted aggressively and violently during disputes with neighbors, resulting in multiple police responses to the Guinanes’ home, criminal charges, two G. L. c. 258E harassment prevention orders against the husband, and the suspension of his LTC….

[At a court hearing,] the chief testified that he found Guinane unsuitable based on the conduct of her husband. In May 2022, a neighbor had called 911 to report that, in connection with a property line dispute, the husband “came to [that neighbor’s] property yelling about trash cans and was carrying a baseball bat and then smashed a light pole in a fit of rage.” When police responded, they found the Guinanes sitting on their front porch, where the husband told them, “I know I smashed a light.” He explained that he believed someone had broken into his shed and that he had lost his temper. The husband was criminally charged with vandalizing property, a charge that remained pending at the time of the hearing, and the neighbors obtained a G. L. c. 258E harassment prevention order against him, effective until June 2023. The chief suspended the husband’s LTC, finding him both unsuitable, based on his “volatile behavior,” and to be a prohibited person, based on the G. L. c. 258E order.

Subsequently, the husband and a second neighbor had a “verbal altercation,” leading to the husband’s being charged with threatening to commit a crime (“to wit kill”) and with “assault [with intent] to intimidate based on the victim’s race, religion, color and/or disability.” Those charges, too, remained pending at the time of the hearing, and the second neighbor also obtained a G. L. c. 258E order against the husband.

When Guinane applied for her own LTC, the chief found her unsuitable. The chief acknowledged that, unlike the typical unsuitability determination focusing on “behaviors or incidents involving the applicant him or herself,” here he denied Guinane’s application because of his concern that her husband, who was an unsuitable and prohibited person, lived with her and thus “would have access to the weapons.” The chief acknowledged on cross-examination that Guinane herself had no criminal record and had not been charged in any of the incidents involving the husband. The chief agreed that, if Guinane were not married to her husband, “she would be a suitable person.” The chief nevertheless determined that “it may be a threat to public safety” to issue an LTC to Guinane….

[Guinane] testified that she was a licensed manicurist who operated a nail salon out of their house; customers sometimes paid her in cash. Also, she provided care to and was “directly responsible” for her elderly mother and a niece who lived in the home with her and her husband….

The appeals court ruled that the criminal charges against her husband were insufficient reason to deny Ms. Guinane’s application to carry a gun:

The chief pointed to no behavior by Guinane suggesting that her licensure might create a safety risk. There is no evidence that she engaged in violent or aggressive behavior, or that she assisted or contributed to her husband’s past violent and aggressive behavior, or that she engaged in behavior suggesting that she might be negligent in securing her firearms as required by law.

Nor was there reliable evidence that she intended to or might be forced to make firearms available to her husband or any other prohibited or unsuitable person. Although the District Court judge suggested that the timing of Guinane’s application, shortly after her husband’s LTC was suspended, “lends credence to the Chief’s belief that her application was a pretense to allow her husband to maintain access to firearms,” the chief himself never stated that he held such a belief. Nor did counsel for the chief, at the evidentiary hearing, elicit any evidence from Guinane, or ask her, about the possibility that she would give her husband unlawful access to firearms….

The chief’s natural concern that the husband might somehow obtain access was certainly deserving of consideration. But ultimately it lacked the evidentiary basis statutorily required to support a determination of unsuitability….

An application for an LTC shortly after a family member’s LTC was suspended (or application was denied) might be considered some evidence that the applicant had “exhibited or engaged in behavior that suggests that, if issued a license, the applicant or licensee may create” a safety risk by making firearms available to the unlicensed family member. But here it did not amount to the requisite “reliable, articulable and credible information” suggesting any appreciable risk that Guinane might do so and was therefore unsuitable.

By Audrey Streb

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in a case determining whether companies acting under federal orders can shift state lawsuits to federal court — with many concerned parties arguing that American energy is at stake.

The case addresses whether Chevron and other energy companies can move a Louisiana state lawsuit to federal court under the federal-officer removal statute, based on actions taken on behalf of the federal government during World War II. Roughly 40 lawsuits have been filed since 2013 over oil and gas companies’ alleged role in Louisiana’s coastal erosion, and the Supreme Court’s upcoming review of Chevron U.S.A. v. Plaquemines Parish  decides whether those cases can be moved from state to federal court.

“At the end of the day, this is about federal supremacy… that means that those doing the work of the federal government can’t be hauled into some state or local court to face judgment for the work they’re doing for the federal government,” Mike Fragoso a partner at Torridon Law PLLC, said in a statement. (RELATED: Trump DOJ Joins Fight As Major Players Sound Alarm Over ‘Climate Lawfare’ That Could ‘Cripple’ American Energy)

Coastal waters flow through deteriorating wetlands on August 22, 2019 in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Several parties filed amicus briefs in September — including the Department of Justice (DOJ), Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Republican Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox — arguing the lawsuits should be heard in federal court because some of the alleged conduct occurred during World War II when companies operated under federal contracts.

Chevron and other energy companies are urging the Supreme Court to overturn a Fifth Circuit ruling that found the oil companies failed to establish federal jurisdiction. Former U.S. Attorneys General Bill Barr and Michael Mukasey, along with numerous state attorneys general, support Chevron’s position. They argue the parishes are seeking to impose retroactive liability for conduct that the federal government previously authorized.

“The FDR administration ordered the oil companies to drill as much oil as they can in Louisiana and then refine it into aviation gasoline. … In an emergency situation like wartime, you can’t just go around suing people 80 years later for what the government told them to do,” John Shu, a constitutional law expert and legal commentator who served in the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If you can sue somebody 80 years later for what the government told you to do to win a war, then no one’s going to do it.”

Others like Alliance For Consumers Executive Director O.H. Skinner argue the lawsuits could harm consumers as he links them to “woke lawfare,” or in other words, lawsuits pushed by climate activists that seek to wield the courts to enact their agenda.

Skinner told the DCNF previously that “woke lawfare is one of the key fronts being pressed by left-wing activists, where they hope to obtain the policy victories in court that have been rejected at the ballot box and in the halls of Congress. … This Louisiana lawsuit is a chief example of the climate lawfare that is being pushed by these activists and trial lawyers. It would mark a major turning point for the Supreme Court to rule against the plaintiffs and provide its first decision disrupting that campaign.”

Many major climate lawsuits brought by Democrat cities and states against energy companies have been dismissed recently, though some analysts argue that if even one surviving case succeeds, it could set a precedent with far-reaching impacts for the energy sector and consumers.

The Louisiana oil and gas industry is massive, generating over $54 billion for the state in 2021, according to an analysis from the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (LMOGA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API). The Gulf Coast accounts for 55% of American refining capacity, with Louisiana’s Gulf Coast alone accounting for a significant portion, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Legal experts, including Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, have pointed out alleged close ties and aligned interests between Louisiana’s governor and a trial lawyer leading many of these cases.

Fragoso also argued that “Louisiana is probably the worst place in the country for getting hometowned. Their judges are elected… with the support of plaintiffs’ lawyers… Plaquemines Parish [has] like 23,000 people in it. So do the math of $745 million divided by 23,000 people, and you’re seeing the financial incentive for any individual resident who’s on the jury is tremendous.”

Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry moved to intervene in the local government lawsuits against the oil and gas companies and said they had “differing and competing interests” that affected Louisiana’s coastal restoration and economy in 2016, according to NOLA.com, a local New Orleans publication. Landry has since voiced support for the lawsuits.

The Baton Rouge law firm Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello, represented the local government’s lawsuit against Chevron for wetlands damages. It also donated $300,000 to the Protect Louisiana’s Children PAC, which supported Landry’s gubernatorial run in 2023, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.

By Timothy Sekerak

Portland Police Chief Bob Day started crying during a press conference Friday after admitting two people shot by federal agents were linked to Tren de Aragua.

“They do have some nexus to involvement with TdA, we can confirm that … and what I can say is that there is an association with the two folks from yesterday and TdA,” Day said during the press conference.