🇺🇸 Doomscroll News

Tag: First Amendment

  • New York’s Final Chapter

    New York’s Final Chapter

    The mythology of New York City is dead. The idea of a thriving metropolis of boundless energy and opportunity is a fantasy. The city has been in a malaise for years, powered by a 24/7 party scene of clubs and consumption, not actual progress. Now, it faces a figure who represents the logical conclusion of this decline. Zohran Mamdani’s political platform is not a plan to fix a struggling city; it is a program of economic suicide designed to pull the plug.

    His proposal to force a $30 minimum wage on the city is a theatrical gesture that will trigger a wave of bankruptcies, not prosperity. To fund this and other schemes, he points to NYC’s AI sector as a cash cow ready for slaughter.

    Let’s be real about this so-called NYC AI sector. It’s bullshit. It is overwhelmingly composed of:

    • Bloated Consulting Firms: Companies like PwC are not core AI developers; they are middlemen who will be the first to be cut in a real economy.
    • Gimmicky “Feature-AI” Companies: Firms like Grammarly and Rokt are not foundational. They build features on top of existing innovation and will be rendered obsolete by the next technological leap.
    • Cash-Burning Startups: The rest are overwhelmingly small-time ventures with no viable business models, destined to go up in flames the second venture capital dries up.
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  • Justice KBJ: Anti-DEI, Pro-Religious Freedom, Defender of Jan. 6 Rioters … or Not?

    As I’ve been telling people since she was confirmed—and I have witnesses—Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record is revealing a judicial philosophy with surprising MAGA elements. Here are a few of her rulings that prove it:

    • Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (2025): Marlean Ames, a straight woman, alleged her supervisor, a lesbian, discriminated against her by favoring LGBTQ+ employees. The case centered on whether plaintiffs from majority groups had to meet a higher legal standard—showing “background circumstances” of discrimination—to bring a lawsuit. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Jackson ruled that Title VII forbids such a two-tiered system. The decision eliminated the “background circumstances” test, ensuring all individuals face the same evidentiary standard when alleging workplace discrimination.
    • Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission (2025): The Court unanimously sided with Catholic Charities against the state of Wisconsin, which had denied the organization a religious-employer exemption from unemployment taxes. Wisconsin argued the charity wasn’t “operated primarily for religious purposes” because it served all people, not just Catholics, and didn’t proselytize. The Court held that the state’s position violated the First Amendment by imposing a “denominational preference” and attempting to define what constitutes a valid religious activity, which the government is forbidden from doing.
    • Fischer v. United States (2024): This case questioned whether a felony obstruction charge, originally passed to prevent evidence tampering, could be broadly applied to defendants from the January 6 Capitol riot. Justice Jackson joined the conservative majority in a 6-3 decision that found prosecutors had interpreted the law too broadly. The Court ruled the law is limited to acts that impair the integrity of evidence, not any conduct that disrupts an official proceeding. This significantly narrowed the application of a key felony charge in Jan. 6 prosecutions.
    • CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association (2024): Her opinion, while far from perfect in my opinion, was a strong defense of judicial restraint, arguing that courts have no power to overrule Congress on funding matters unless the Constitution is explicitly and unambiguously violated. This reasoning champions a limited role for the judiciary, a core principle of legal conservatism.
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