Welcome to Court Watch #143. It’s been a week for America. Between the school shootings, a political assassination, and the anniversaries of terrorist attacks, we’re exhausted by it all.
And so we did what we always should do in times like these, poured a stiff glass of good whiskey on a late Thursday evening and lost ourselves in 94 federal court districts. Our cognitive dissonance and desperate need for mental floss is Court Watch subscribers’ gain because we uncovered no less than seven court filings that should make national news by Friday afternoon.
Upon quick reflection, we probably lowballed that number. It’s our Flood The Zone issue. We also front loaded them into the early part of the newsletter for the lazier reporters in our email list.
Remember, if you do file a story based on our reporting, it’s only proper to expense a paid subscription for Court Watch. For everyone else who has a profession not inherently despised by half the country, don’t worry, you’ll still thoroughly enjoy this issue.
That’s the lede in all its glory. No filler, just this. Let’s dive in.
The Docket Roundup
The feds found an instagram post by a guy with over 500,000 followers who allegedly unmasked/doxxed an ICE agent and the agent’s wife. Authorities then bird dogged the comments section and got two, separate criminal cases out of the folks purportedly threatening violence online. This is in addition to a another different case of a self-described “nerd, anarchist, antifascist” arrested for threatening to kill ICE agents on BlueSky.
Conservative magazine, the National Review, wants a judge to order Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to tell them how she made a high quality video about Hiroshima.
The Trump Organization and a number of Amazon and ebay sellers, including at least one based in China, agreed to settle over hawking knockoff MAGA gear.
In what is surely a first but won’t probably be the last example, an online influencer who falsely accused a transgender pilot of crashing a plane is using what we guess we’d called the “Grok defense” for a defamation case (“it was a fact that Grok (X’s AI) was saying it, and it is a fact that prior to my posting comments on the matter there were no community notes or findable refutations stating otherwise — this was more than enough to support my reasonably believing that Jo Ellis was the pilot in question at the time I posted”) to argue he didn’t know any better.
Speaking of X, the company has settled with a number of employees it was said to have unduly fire.
We appreciate that an ATF taskforce officer is just casually throwing a footnote into a seemingly simple gun case which appears to identify a suspect in a previously unsolved murder that the FBI is currently offering 10,000 dollars to anyone who could solve it. Someone let us know if we qualify for the reward for spotting the footnote.
The SEC is pushing back on Elon Musk, arguing they don’t want to try the case in Texas like he would prefer.
Chappell Roan filed a federal lawsuit to prevent Pink Pony Clones.
We’re still writing at 11:17pm on a Thursday so here’s a just-issued ruling that goes against the Administration on Venezuelans’ temporary status issues.
If you ever wanted to see how a suspect purportedly complicit in an Iranian government killing of U.S. soldiers moves crypto, a filing in Massachusetts shows you the way.
We’re not immigration law experts and no one checks the Nebraska dockets like we do but we’re pretty sure a federal judge telling DHS that only the Justice Department has the authority to detain someone may have some ramifications to immigration enforcement.
Fashion company Shein is accused of using artificial intelligence to scour the internet to copy systematically copy artists’ materials
You come at the conservative king, you best not miss. Newsmax throws in the towel against FoxNews.
Because we assume they think they can get away with it without anyone in the press noticing because it’s hard to explain in one story, United Healthcare is asking for sanctions against folks suing the company about coverage who allegedly talked to the Department of Labor about stuff in their lawsuit. But we just explained it in one run-on sentence. So checkmate.
A gay rights attorney was indicted for perjury in Alabama for allegedly lying during a hearing about judge shopping. Our friends at Lawdork have thoughts about it all.
Former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll and two other former leaders of the Bureau are suing over their firings, writing, “Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people. As explained herein, his decision to do so degraded the country’s national security by firing three of the FBI’s most experienced operational leaders, each of them experts in preventing terrorism and reducing violent crime.”
Meanwhile, another former special agent/Cable News opinioner filed a motion to dismiss FBI Director Kash Patel’s defamation suit against him for comments over Patel’s work ethic.
DOJ opposed a motion by NBCNews to unseal two names of Epstein’s uncharged reported co-conspirators.
Area Substacker Matt Taibbi doesn’t want to go up against the U.S. Government, arguing instead that a Democratic Congresswoman’s tweets don’t fall within the speech and debate clause immunity for legislators. Given that the magistrate judge kicked it to a district judge, we’re not sure the motion is going to fly. It’s fascinating to see what appeared to start as a headline messaging lawsuit may end up inadvertently expanding the congressional immunity so broadly to allow Senators and Congressman to say whatever they want whenever and wherever they want without fear of defamation lawsuits. Congrats, we guess, to everyone involved. This surely won’t come back to haunt us in coming years.
A short content break before we get back to the dockets…
34 of us Indie Media organizations banded together to do a September drive to encourage our subscribers to read others in the world of independent media. Check out the list of other publications and consider expanding your news world.
We checked, very few of you actually click on our song of the week every issue which is a real shame because we spend an exuberant amount of time a week finding the perfect song for the moment.
Two Ohio drivers are suing the heads of the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles and public safety for preventing them from ordering license plates that say “Gay” and “Muslim.”
A Tennessee police officer was arrested for kidnapping after he allegedly held his romantic partner at gunpoint in her own home while on duty.
A reminder that crypto scammers can be in it for the long game, running cons that last months before raising their scheme.
The Justice Department announced a charge against the suspect in the Charlotte train stabbing for committing an act of death on a mass transportation system, which is a capital offense.
A neo Nazi in Tennessee pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to attack Nashville’s power grid as part of his broader alleged plot to commit a mass shooting at the local YMCA in 2024.
Meta is being sued by its former head of security for WhatsApp over claims he was fired after reporting cybersecurity lapses.
The DOJ and North Carolina’s Board of Elections agreed to settle in a case over the state’s voter registration practices.
Sugar and Spice, an Illinois company, turned out to be a possible scam.
Another week and another lawsuit against X; this time alleging that the company fails to adequately contain explicit content.
Elliott Broidy is mad that American Express customer support didn’t notice he got pardoned.
A fake marriage and a fake domestic violence accusation leads to a real immigration charge.
Imagine going to jail for bootlegging movies on a piece of technology no one uses anymore.
Honestly, after the week America had, we needed a palate cleansing story about a man jumping off a cruise ship with $14,000 dollars to avoid having to tell U.S. customs about it and then having the gall to mock law enforcement for not realizing his real name. The 16,000 in gambling debt while on the cruise casino is just icing on the cake.
GITMO is having water problems.
Please don’t hate us FBI flacks, but was “use the anonymity of the internet to commit crime” or was it the actual crime that was the issue?
Prosecutors are still working on new Feeding Our Future scam cases in Minneapolis.
Respectfully, not nearly enough of you all are talking about this bomb making case outta California.
A Jan 6er is suing the U.S. Government.
You can’t convince us trademark law is an real thing after there is a lawsuit over the word Ray.
“Minnesota is not a launchpad for overseas violence.” says one U.S Attorney clearing up any confusion folks may have had about Minnesota Nice.
This week brought out the worst in humanity so let’s just put into all one bullet: An arrest over death threats to former high school classmates. NatureBoy was arrested for threatening to kill folks. A multi state investigation into threats to kill cops. A threat to a staffer for the President. An Arkansas man was indicted for threatening to behead the President.
Thanks for reading. Take care of yourself and others this week.