Judging Freedom - FL bans lessons on gender & sex ID in grade school_ SCOTUS & religion

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, April 19, 2023. It's about 2.30 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Here are your hot topics. We have quite a few of them today. My former employer, my professional home for 24 years, which put me in front of a camera 14,500 times in those 24 years, Fox News Channel settled its lawsuit against Dominion Voting Machines Company last night for $787,500, more than three quarters of a billion dollars. This is probably the largest settlement in a defamation case in the United States of America in history. Defamation cases where the plaintiff says the plaintiff suffered some quantifiable financial harm as a result of what the defendant said about the plaintiff are very difficult to prove in America where the plaintiff has to meet what's called a standard of actual malice without getting too technical.

Dominion would have to have shown that Fox spoke with knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard for whether or not what it said was the truth without getting into what my friends and former colleagues said, as a judge, I've presided over thousands of settlements. No one is happy when a case is settled. The plaintiff walks away thinking it or she or he should have gotten more, and the defendant walks away thinking that it or she or he should have paid less. In fact, the judges used to kid each other that it's a sign of a good settlement when both sides are unhappy. If one side was happy and the other side was not, then that means the settlement was probably not a fair one. What produces a settlement? It's a judgment call. The plaintiff wants money but is worried it might not get the money it wants from

a jury. The defendant, in this case Fox, knows it has to pay something but is worried the jury might order it to pay more than it wants. Will this money bankrupt Fox? No, absolutely not. Fox is probably worth about $100 billion. Its last financial report showed as of June of last year, June of 22, it had over $4 billion in cash or in liquid assets and in assets that could be converted to cash within 24 or 48 hours. That's a lot of cash, obviously. This is not coming from the pockets of the Murdoch family. It's coming from earned income set aside for this purpose. Sometimes you don't want to try a case because you fear harm can come out from trying it. Other times you don't want to try a case because you fear harm can come out from trying it. Other times you don't want to try a case because you're worried the jury won't understand it. There are a lot of reasons for settling. Sometimes people plead guilty to very, very low-level crimes which they didn't commit

in order to avoid being prosecuted for higher crimes. That's a form of settlement. That's a very serious issue because it implicates due process. But in the case of Dominion v. Fox, this is a private settlement. I was surprised that the amount was revealed. Usually Fox insists that the amount not be revealed, but both sides agreed, and the judge in the case agreed, that the amount could be revealed, but, uh, both sides agreed. And the judge, uh, in the case agreed that the amount could be revealed. Is it fair? We'll never know if it's fair.

Both sides obviously think that it's fair because both sides agreed that this was, uh, the proper amount Fox did not want. It's, um, senior executive chairman and founder, Rupert Murdoch, founder along with the late great Roger Ailes, to be put on the witness stand. And it did not want its most prized talent, my friends and former colleagues, to be put on the witness stand and grilled by Dominion's lawyers. And Dominion, to be candid, was worried they weren't going to get anywhere near the number they wanted. Dominion isn't even worth half of that amount of money. I don't know what damages Dominion was able to show, but it probably gained publicity and gained advertising as a result of this entire litigation. So we'll never know. Both sides think it's fair. The judge thinks it's fair. Both sides saved embarrassment time and money and the unknown that sometimes happens in a jury case. For my friends and former colleagues, I'm happy that this is behind them.

You have heard me complain many times that Americans have troops on the ground in Ukraine. And in fact, the documents that were released in the past several months, the government says by Jack Teixeira, we don't know exactly who released them. He's the one the government is charging with espionage, reveal the presence of special forces, American special forces on the ground, British special forces and others. Congressman Matt Gaetz, with whom I sometimes agree and with whom I sometimes don't, has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to compel the President of the United States to reveal the number of troops on the ground and what they're doing. Not where they are, but what they're doing. Are they guarding the

embassy, as Joe Biden says? I mean, that's a stretch to have special forces guarding the enemy. Special forces are to the army what the SEALs are to the Navy. Stated differently, the most highly trained lethal killers that the Army or the Navy has. It would be a colossal waste to have them supplementing the Marine Guards, Marines Guard almost every U.S. Embassy in the world. It would be a colossal waste to have these highly trained young men guarding the embassy in Kiev. I don't believe that for a minute. I believe they're there for another reason. Scott Ritter, who will be on later today, and Colonel McGregor, who will be on tomorrow, have said on this program that American troops are on the ground, special forces out of uniform. Another problem, but it allows the

president to say we don't have troops on the ground. When they're out of uniform, I guess you don't consider them troops. I don't know if they're armed when they're out of uniform. I do know when they're out of uniform in a war zone, they don't have the protection of the Geneva Conventions. Anyway, Colonel McGregor and Scott Ritter believe that the American troops on the ground, the special forces that are there, are using computers to instruct Ukrainians in the use of very sophisticated American equipment. And in fact, they're using those computers to locate and aim the equipment at Russian targets. Then other American troops, not on the ground in Ukraine, but on the ground west of Ukraine in Poland are pulling the triggers. Are American troops using American hardware to aim American ammunition at Russian troops? The answer, yes,

pretty much the definition of war. When you add that to our American spies on the ground, CIA, or wherever spies go these days, maybe they spy from the United States if it's all digital, are American spies gathering data about the Russians and giving it to the Ukrainians so they know how and where to aim this stuff? Answer, yes. Short answer, Gates is on to something. Joe Biden is fighting a war. Does he have authorization from the Congress? He does not. This legislation may pass the House. I doubt it would pass the Senate, but you never know. There are some sensible Democrats who are concerned about this. The problem in the Senate would be the Republicans. I guess that's the problem in the House too. The sentiment for war

amongst Republicans is overwhelming. The sentiment for war in Congress, the sentiment for war amongst congressional Democrats is overwhelming. I don't even know if Gates has a seconder to offer this resolution with him, but we'll see where it goes. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States held a very interesting oral argument about a former postal delivery worker who didn't want to work on Sunday. I didn't even know the post office delivered on Sunday, but they do. Rather than accommodating this guy, they forced him to work on Sunday. And because of his religious views that he doesn't work on Sunday, he quit and sued the post office. The post office is owned by the government. The government is restrained by the First Amendment. The First Amendment says, among other things, that Congress shall make no law interfering with the free exercise of religion, and this fellow's religion prohibits him from working on Sunday.

Why doesn't the post office just give him another assignment? Why do they have to go through this? Well, the post office dug in its heels. He quit, but then he sued. So he's digging in his heels. And now the Supreme Court has to decide, is it going to force the post office to take this fellow back or to pay him back pay? He actually wants his job back. And then let him have Sunday off. Or is that interfering with the post office's ability to manage its enormous tasks? And the court will have to resolve that.

You know, freedom of religion is absolute. You can believe in any religion you want. You can believe in any religion you want. You can't practice any religion you want. Suppose your religion called for some crime, like ingestion of a controlled dangerous substance, or animal sacrifice, or even human sacrifice. So obviously there are limits. And there are limits with the government's ability to interfere with religion. And there are limits to the court's ability to require the government to respect religion. So this is a delicate balance here. The benefit of the doubt, in my view, should be given to the individual. And again, I'm scratching my head. Why the hell didn't they just give him a job on a day other than Sunday?

Why go through this? Why not accommodate him? But they didn't. And now they're a defendant in this lawsuit before the Supreme Court. It's hard to determine from the oral argument yesterday how the oral argument is going to go. I can't predict it. Normally in religion cases, this court, the Roberts court, is very pro-freedom of religion and almost always sides with the individual against the government, but this is not an easy call. We will follow it. Of course, when the

decision comes down, we will let you know. Yesterday, the governor of Kansas and the governor of Arizona both did the same thing. They vetoed legislation intended to preserve the life of babies who survive abortions. This is a very difficult subject to discuss. What human being, what physician, what health care provider, what governmental official would want a baby that survives an abortion to starve to death. So the legislature of Kansas, controlled by Republicans with a supermajority, that's more than two-thirds Republicans in both houses of the legislature, the legislature of Arizona with Republican majorities, but not super majorities, both enacted legislation requiring healthcare providers

to maintain the health and life of the baby who survives an abortion. Two governors vetoed it, believing it interferes with medical judgment. Good mother of God. What an argument. Sounds like the Nazi doctors. Nevertheless, expect the Kansas legislature to override the governor's veto. We'll see what happens in Arizona. Unfortunately, it is the law of the land of many states, including where I am now in New Jersey. If the baby survives the abortion, the doctor may allow that baby and the healthcare providers may allow the baby to starve to death. To me, that is infanticide. Why? Because every healthcare provider has taken the Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm. Then,

do all humanly possible to preserve life and health. Letting that infant freeze. Baby is always cold when the baby comes out from the warmth of the womb. Freeze and die of thirst and die of starvation is nothing shorter than fantasize. No matter what the government says about it, we'll see what happens in Kansas and in Arizona. Abortions are legal in both states up to 22 weeks. And of course, as you know, babies are viable. That's viability. Babies can survive outside the womb with the appropriate medical care and nourishment, of course, after 22 weeks.

Actually, viability is a little before that. Speaking of abortion, today, the Supreme Court, today, Wednesday, April 19th, the Supreme Court will rule on abortion. Wait a minute. I thought the court ruled on abortion last year. Yes. Well, this is the case about the abortifacient. That's the drug that women take, pregnant women take when they want to induce a spontaneous abortion. Now we're talking about an abortion from chemicals, not an abortion from scalpels. We're talking about an abortion that does not take place in a medical facility, but takes place at home or wherever the pregnant woman is when she takes the drug.

As you may know, a federal judge in Texas ordered the Food and Drug Administration to rescind its approval of the drug, an approval it gave 21 years ago. A federal judge in the state of Washington said to the Food and Drug Administration, keep the approval. So we have these two judges, same rank and level, different parts of the country, state of Washington and Texas ruling differently. The one in Texas was appealed to the United States Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit, and they more or less upheld part of what the judge said. They said the drug is okay, but you can only get it with a prescription and you can't get it over the mail and you can only use it at certain times during the pregnancy. These are rules they added to it. So the DOJ appealed that to the Supreme

Court. Last Friday, Justice Alito, interestingly, the author of the Dobbs decision, which overruled Roe versus Wade, which said all, emphasis, all abortion decisions are left up to the states. Justice Alito stayed, stopped the effect of the Fifth Circuit opinion and of the Texas judge's opinion. So these abortifacients are legal now. But that stay expires at 11.59 p.m. Eastern time tonight. So either the stay is going to be extended beyond 11.59 p.m. Eastern time tonight, or the court is going to rule in the next eight hours, extending the stay or lifting the stay. I doubt that they're going to rule in the next eight hours, extending the stay or lifting the stay. I doubt that they're going to rule on the merits.

A rule on the merits would be, can the FDA license these things or does all in Dobbs mean all? Meaning all decisions, including the viability of abortifacients, the drug that induces the abortion, are all these decisions now left up to the states. You know, the courts use strange words. Congress shall make no law. Does that really mean no law? All decisions are now left up to the states. Does that really mean all? Well, we'll find out, I think, before today is over. And finally today,

the Department of Education in the state of Florida announced a rule that prohibits the teaching of sex education in all government schools. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Sex education should be taught by parents to children. Now, I have a bias here. It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with education. My bias is there should be no government schools. Government schools are basically instruments of indoctrination, and they are doomed to fail. Why are they doomed to fail?

You've heard me make this argument before. They're doomed to fail because think of a business. They have guaranteed clients, the student, guaranteed income, the taxpayers, and next to no competition. That's a recipe for failure and waste. If all schools were private, cost would go down, value of services would go up, and parents could choose which school they want their children to go to. All the schools will teach the basics, reading, writing, arithmetic, computers, everything everybody needs to know

that are the basics today. Some would prepare you for college. Some would prepare you for professional athletics. Some would prepare you to become airline pilots. Some would prepare you to become airline mechanics. Some would prepare you for law school or medical school. It wouldn't be one size fits all. These schools would cost a lot less than your tax dollars. And because they have competition and because they need income and because they need clientele, their services would be better and their costs would be lower. But that's not what we have government schools, regulated by government, run by some of the most liberal people in the country who want to teach little Johnny, you can become a girl, and little Susie,

you can become a boy. And the only way to stop this is to stop them from teaching anything about sex education. I remembered sex education when I was a youngster in school, long time ago, it was the basics about health and cleanliness and reproduction. It was no nonsense about how you can butcher your body or how you can change your gender without butchering your body. But we've reached the point in America today where silence is preferred to knowledge when the knowledge consists of perversity. Leave it up to the parents. If the parents want to discuss this with their kids, I don't know what parents would. But if the parents want to discuss this with their kids, that's their prerogative.

The family is ultimately the first and the most important resort for teaching children. More as we get it. We'll be back here when that Supreme Court decision comes down. And if you're watching live, I'll be back here at 4.30 Eastern today with Scott Ritter. What's the latest on Jack Teixeira? Did he really act alone? And why is all of Europe against Emmanuel Macron? Simply because he wants Europe to be independent of the United States? And is the U.S. still occupying Germany? Hmm. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.