Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., got defensive in a new interview as she railed against billionaire donations in politics and was asked about Democrat Troy Jackson revealing multiple billionaire donors, as well as a large possible donation from Michael Bloomberg.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins said during an interview with Warren that Bloomberg had given about $80 million to help Democrats win the midterms after noting that Elon Musk had contributed $276 million to Republicans.

Collins asked Warren, "You're someone who has said billionaire donors should not be in politics. Given what you've said, do you want Michael Bloomberg's help here?"

THE SOROS POLITICAL MACHINE IS PUTTING MILLIONS TO WORK BEFORE ELECTION DAY – AND ZEROING IN ON KEY RACES

"Look, what I want is to get this kind of money out of politics," Warren said. "Right now, the Republicans know that their only chance, as they see it, to be able to hang on to the House and the Senate and some of these governors' mansions is to be able to just drown people in money, to be able to run all the ads on TV, to lie, to cheat, and that there won't be any opportunity for Democrats to be able to respond."

"We need to push back because, this campaign, this 2026 midterm, really is about the money or the people. Because the Democrats have got the people on their side. The Republicans have got the money, and they think if they can spend it, they can maintain control of this country, and I sure hope they're wrong," Warren said, arguing for a "very different" system.

Collins then raised Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, who said during a debate against his opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that he had no billionaires funding him. However, a financial report released by the campaign earlier this month found there were at least four billionaire donors funding him, according to Fox23.

"Do you think that he needs to address that contradiction?" Collins asked Warren.

COLLINS INSISTS SOCIALIST RIVAL WON'T BEAT HER AS MAINE'S MONEY MACHINE: 'YOU'LL LOSE BIG TIME'

"So look, really? That's where we're going to make the focus? So, Susan Collins has all this money coming in against her. Elon Musk has come in and put, I don't know, what are the numbers now, how many tens of millions of dollars? And we're going to say, ‘Oops, Troy Jackson may have gotten one of his numbers wrong. He may have gotten contributions from four billionaires,’" she responded.

She said she wanted all the billionaires out.

HOW ELON MUSK GOT BACK IN TRUMP'S ORBIT AFTER NUCLEAR FALLOUT, INSIDERS REVEAL: 'WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE'

"I don't think they ought to be able to control elections," she said. "But understand this: it is the Republicans who are outspending Democrats like crazy. And it's not Republicans who are small-dollar donors. It's billionaires and a trillionaire who think that they can just back up dump truck loads full of money, and they will be able to buy a Senate seat in Maine."

She went on to point a finger at President Donald Trump.

"That's a big part of why so much is broken in this country. It's that billionaires and insiders for Donald Trump are calling all the shots," she said.

Jackson's campaign did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment.

"Elizabeth Warren and Troy Jackson are both morally bankrupt hypocrites who want power at any cost. Warren overlooked Graham Platner's horrendous history in favor of advancing her socialist agenda, and now she's doing the same with his knock-off replacement," RNC spokesperson Kristen Cianci told Fox News Digital in a statement.

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Warren called on Democrats to reject billionaire donations ahead of the 2026 midterms and 2028 elections in January.

Warren was interviewed about her speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., at the time, where she said Democrats had to "credibly demonstrate" they could take on a "rigged system," which might mean upsetting the wealthy. In the address, she contrasted Democrats who will take on the fight head-on and those who "politely nibble around the edges of change."

"So, look, the Democrats need to build a bigger tent in order to win in 2026, 2028 and beyond. So the question is, how do we do that?" Warren told CNN. While she said he has not managed to follow through, she credited Trump for at least discerning that one of everyday Americans' biggest priorities is wanting basic costs lowered.

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School resource officers (SROs) in Texas referred tens of thousands of elementary and middle schoolers for prosecution for relatively minor misconduct over the last decade, a news investigation found.

An analysis by The New York Times and the San Antonio Express-News reported that, as the number of SROs in Texas grew, children in Texas ages 10 to 13 were referred to prosecution for misbehaving in school more than 47,000 times since 2014. A referral doesn't necessarily result in charges being filed, but each one represents a minor being taken into police custody and put in contact with the criminal justice system, which can have long-lasting educational, emotional, and financial impacts for students and their families.

"Most of the students were accused of minor offenses, like making threats, using cannabis vapes or lashing out at classmates or teachers," the papers reported. "Few caused serious physical harm."

Among the examples cited by the Times and Express-News were an 11-year-old who bumped into a school counselor, a 10-year-old who said he saw someone on campus with a weapon, and a 10-year-old who kicked an assistant principal after his cellphone was taken away. 

In one case, a 12-year-old girl who refused to go to the principal's office was handcuffed, arrested, and driven to the school police headquarters. "When she would not put her hand on a fingerprint machine, officers twisted her opposite arm behind her back until she screamed and complied, according to body camera footage," the outlets reported.

The analysis found that referrals of children 10 to 13 increased by a greater percentage than referrals of older students. (Children under 10 cannot be prosecuted under Texas law; many other states don't set a minimum age for delinquency.)

The two outlets published another joint investigation in May on how SROs in Texas schools have used heavy-handed tactics, including Tasers and pepper spray, against students over seemingly minor misconduct.

The findings mirror other recent studies. A report published in July by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Iowa found that, while SROs were placed in Iowa schools to keep students safe from violence, the threat they most commonly dealt with was illicit vaping.

The number of police in schools nationally dramatically increased in recent years, growing by 23 percent at high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools between 2018 and 2021, largely under the justification of stopping mass shootings and handling violent situations.

Organizations like the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) say that carefully selected, well-trained officers act as a filter and decrease arrests by building strong relationships within the school with staff and students.

Civil liberties groups and disability advocates have long argued that increases in school police and zero-tolerance policies for petty disturbances have fueled the "school-to-prison" pipeline and led to disproportionate enforcement against minorities and students with disabilities. Those groups have been aided by viral news stories of police arresting and assaulting school children.

Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and national calls for police reform, several major school districts across the country ended their SRO programs. 

However, several states that experienced horrific school shootings, like Florida and Texas, moved in the opposite direction, passing laws that required police officers or armed guardians in public schools.

A 2020 Reason investigation described how Florida schools had become a high-stakes experiment in policing after Florida more than doubled the number of SROs across the state following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. A study published in 2020 found that after the increase, the number of Florida school arrests—which had been declining for years—suddenly started to rise. There was also a sharp increase in the use of physical restraint against students.

A 2021 working paper by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, which billed itself as the broadest and most rigorous examination at the school level of how SROs impact student outcomes, found that while SROs "do effectively reduce some forms of violence in schools," they did not prevent school shootings or gun-related incidents.

Another study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the firm Westat, who studied several dozen middle and high schools in California, found that increasing the number of SROs led to both immediate and persistent increases in the number of drug and weapon offenses and the number of suspensions and expulsions of students.

The post Texas School Police Referred Tens of Thousands of Children to Prosecutors for Minor Misbehavior appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Housing Rights and Public Policies Association (AHDPP) has explained exactly how the housing crisis is threatening Portugal’s very future. In an interview with Executive Digest, the association warns of the

The post “No one has children at their parents’ home”: association warns of impact of housing crisis on birth rate appeared first on Portugal Resident.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced Tuesday that it has corrected records for nearly 15% of all active Social Security numbers (SSN), adding missing death and citizenship data as part of the Trump administration’s drive to curb benefits fraud.

The post Social Security Corrects 15% of Active SSNs in Largest Cleanup in 91 Years appeared first on Breitbart.

Um Honda NSX vermelho que fez parte da vida de Ayrton Senna fora das pistas será leiloado em Londres, na Inglaterra, em 31 de outubro. O esportivo de 1991, associado ao tricampeão mundial de Fórmula 1, tem valor estimado entre 500 mil e 800 mil libras, faixa equivalente a aproximadamente R$ 3,5 milhões a R$ 5,6 milhões. O leilão será realizado pela RM Sotheby’s.

A história do veículo ganhou notoriedade com fotografias de Senna lavando a carroceria com uma mangueira de jardim, vestido de jeans e camisa. A cena se tornou uma das imagens mais lembradas do piloto em momentos longe das competições.

O NSX também aparece no documentário Ayrton Senna: Racing Is in My Blood, de 1992. Nas imagens, o brasileiro dirige o modelo e faz manobras ao volante do esportivo japonês.

Carro acompanhava Senna na Europa

A Honda disponibilizou o veículo para uso pessoal do piloto na Europa durante o período em que fornecia motores à McLaren. Foi pela equipe britânica que Senna conquistou os três campeonatos mundiais de Fórmula 1, em 1988, 1990 e 1991.

O carro tem carroceria vermelha, teto preto e bancos revestidos de couro escuro. Registrado em Portugal em 22 de março de 1991, com a placa SX-25-59, ficava guardado em Lisboa e era colocado à disposição do piloto durante suas passagens pelo país.

A ligação de Senna com o modelo não se limitava ao uso pessoal. Segundo o repórter especial da Folha de S.Paulo Eduardo Sodré, o brasileiro também contribuiu para o desenvolvimento do NSX, com observações sobre a rigidez da carroceria e o comportamento dinâmico do veículo.

Outro NSX de Senna está no Brasil

O exemplar que irá a leilão na Inglaterra não é o único Honda NSX que pertenceu ao piloto. Uma segunda unidade, também de 1991, está no Brasil. O carro é preto e tem placa iniciada pelas letras BSS, referência a Beco Senna da Silva, apelido de Ayrton Senna.

O modelo japonês leiloado tem motor V6 de 3 litros, cerca de 270 cavalos de potência, câmbio manual e tração traseira.

Depois da morte do piloto, em 1994, o esportivo permaneceu em Portugal e passou pelas mãos de diferentes proprietários. O britânico Robert McFagan o comprou em 2013. Três anos depois, o veículo recebeu registro para circular no Reino Unido.

Em 2019, o NSX voltou ao circuito de Ímola, na Itália, durante as homenagens pelos 25 anos da morte de Senna. Na ocasião, Giancarlo Minardi, fundador da equipe Minardi, dirigiu o carro. Em 2024, o esportivo foi adquirido pelo atual proprietário, um colecionador de Nagoya, no Japão.

The post Honda NSX usado por Ayrton Senna vai a leilão por até R$ 5,6 milhões appeared first on Diário da Manhã - O Jornal do leitor Inteligente.

Democrats on the US Senate Armed Services Committee called on the Pentagon on Monday to reveal how much President Donald Trump’s Iran war is costing American taxpayers, citing “ongoing efforts to hide the true cost.” US Central Command (CENTCOM) told Congress that the war had cost $43.6 billion as of September 3. But in Monday’s […]

The post Calls mount for a true accounting of Trump’s Iran war appeared first on Asia Times.

This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch discuss the riots engulfing France and whether the country's increasingly unsustainable welfare state has made it ungovernable. They examine competing claims that immigration and austerity are fueling the unrest, the political gains being made by the French right, and why even modest pension reforms provoke fierce resistance.

The conversation turns to the United States, where President Donald Trump's tariffs are losing support among blue-collar voters and Republicans are struggling in traditionally conservative areas like Ohio. The panelists then discuss the abrupt departure of White House press secretary Katie Zacharia after just five days on the job. Later, they examine Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D–Mass.) opposition to a proposed $45 billion merger involving McCormick and Unilever. Finally, a listener asks why libertarians don't follow the Democratic Socialists of America's example by trying to reshape the Republican Party from within.

0:00—France's riots and the imploding welfare state
21:29—Trump's tariffs lose support among blue-collar voters.
29:41—Zacharia's tenure as White House press secretary
35:45—Listener question on libertarian influence strategy
45:52—Warren's corporate merger opposition
57:07—Weekly cultural recommendations

 

Upcoming Reason Events

Reason Versus - Authoritarianism Is a Right-Wing Problem, November 10

 

Mentioned in the Podcast:

"France Burns," by Liz Wolfe
"Protesters in France and Spain Are Angry at Government Failure—and Demanding More Government," by Reem Ibrahim
"French Tantrum," by Liz Wolfe
"Yes, Heavy Regulation Hurts the Economy. Just Look at France." by Veronique de Rugy
"Even Blue-Collar Workers Have Turned Against Trump's Unpopular Tariffs," by Eric Boehm
"Ohio's Democrat Momentum," by Liz Wolfe
"Trump Fired Kimberly Guilfoyle for Influence Peddling That Pales Next to His Presidential Profiteering," by Jacob Sullum
"Why populism leads to decline," by Nick Gillespie
"How Third Parties Die," by Jesse Walker
"How GOP Fiscal Sanity Died, in 7 Easy Steps," by Matt Welch
"Be Prepared for Elizabeth Warren's Reign of Economic Error," by Nick Gillespie
"Elizabeth Warren Wants the Government To Investigate America's 'Sandwich Shop Monopoly,'" by Christian Britschgi
"The Elizabeth Holmes Documentary You Can See Everything Is an Act of Radical Empathy," by Peter Suderman
"Thank Dutch Merchants, Not a Strong State, for Capitalism," by Edward Stringham

 

Today's sponsor:

Cato Innovation Project: Design your own full-time, paid role at Cato. If we fund your idea, you spend two years executing it. Apply here: cato.org/reason

The post France's Welfare State Is Finally Imploding appeared first on Reason Magazine.

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© Illustration: Fatima Ruiz

“If she was Israeli, this image would be front-page news,” said one observer.

Among the children returned to Ukrainian-controlled territory is 9-year-old Stefan, who was forced to undergo military training at a school under Russian occupation, according to Bring Kids Back UA.

With little more than two weeks to go until the midterm elections, it seems increasingly possible that the Democrats, already a big favorite to win control of the House of Representatives, will also take charge of the planet's most elite nursing home, the United States Senate, where the median age is 64 years old. RealClearPolitics' poll aggregator has moved control of "the world's greatest deliberative body" (as its members are grandiosely wont to call it) to "toss up," status and prediction markets are now breaking big toward a blue wave. As of this writing, Kalshi has its Senate odds at 63 percent for the Dems vs. 37 percent for the GOP; Polymarket is at 62 percent vs. 39 percent.

As gratifying as it might be to see unprincipled Trump enablers reduced to minority status after signing off on economy-wrecking tariffs, inhumane immigration detentions, and wars of choice, there's at least one good reason to dread a Democratic majority too: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts progressive who is spending the run-up to the midterms freaking out over possible consolidation in the condiments business and accusing private equity firms of gutting such shopping-mall favorites as Claire's and Toys R Us. There's every reason to believe that a Senate run by Warren and other economic interventionists will waste time, money, and resources trying to prevent a world in which, per the X wag Iowahawkblog, "a panopticon conglomerate owns two brands of hot sauce."

On October 13, Warren posted this dire warning to X:

Hellmann's mayo
McCormick spices
Cholula hot sauce
Frank's RedHot

What do these products have in common? One company could soon control them all.

I have concerns that McCormick and Unilever's $45 billion merger could increase YOUR grocery prices.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 13, 2026

It's hard to think of a more competitive and varied market than the one for hot sauces, which is expected to more than double over the next decade. The barriers to entry are generally low, as are the key ingredients, and new entrants can easily market and sell online, avoiding the costs of buying shelf space in conventional supermarkets. Yet Warren is urging regulators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to halt mergers of both product makers like McCormick and Unilever and grocery stores like Kroger and Giant Eagle.

The latter complaint is particularly picayune. Kroger is one of the country's largest supermarket chains, operating around 2,800 stores under its own name as well as Harris Teeter, Ralph's, and others. Giant Eagle operates about 170 stores. This merger is no more the stuff of nightmares than a single company producing both Cholula and Frank's RedHot. If Warren gains more clout from being in the majority, expect her to butt in more and more on such mergers.

Making it harder for businesses to adapt is not a recipe for making goods and services more affordable. But Warren is keen to blame economic creative destruction not on "new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates" (as Joseph Schumpeter would have it), but on pure greed. In a TikTok released earlier this month, she shows a poster board with corporate logos from once-thriving companies that she says have been "gutted" by "private equity" firms.

"Here's your local mall," she piously intones. "Now, private equity wants you to believe that Red Lobster went bankrupt because of their endless shrimp….They want you to believe that Claire's went bankrupt because teens stopped shopping at the mall." In Warren's telling, private equity firms magically take over thriving businesses and then strip them bare. The typical pattern is that private equity enters the picture after a business is failing.

Virtually all accounts of the decline of, for example, Red Lobster, note that the chain had been spiraling for several reasons before the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital got involved in 2014. As this CNN article notes, the chain, which started in 1968, had seen drops in sales as customer desires changed. Management compounded the difficulties with a series of bad decisions, including continuing various all-you-can-eat menu specials, before coming out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

Similarly, it's true that some teens still go to malls and get their ears pierced at Claire's. But anyone who has spent time in retail America over the past few decades knows that malls are no longer the destination that they once were. As CapitalOne Shopping Research documents, "in 1986, there were 25,000 malls, large and small, nationwide." By 2023, that number had shrunk to just 1,200. While some malls are coming back, most are not, and for reasons that have nothing to do with private equity. Online retails plays a role (though a smaller one than usually imagined, with e-commerce accounting for less than 20 percent of all retail sales). But mostly, it's that people today tend to want a different sort of retail environment. Anchor stores—think Macy's and J.C. Penney—are shadows of themselves, and younger people have less unstructured time in which to prowl food courts and arcades.

For politicians like Elizabeth Warren, though, there can be no financial gains or losses that aren't the result of shadowy, conspiratorial forces. If her party takes control of the Senate, her words will carry more weight. But it will be American consumers that ultimately shoulder the burden of an even-more-regulated economy. The market for hot sauces will almost certainly stay spicy, but many other parts will surely suffer.

The post Be Prepared for Elizabeth Warren's Reign of Economic Error appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Exclusive: Using test accounts acting as 13-year-olds, Tech Transparency Project downloaded 135 apps with features to generate nonconsensual nude imagery

In December 2025, Morgan Dorfman received distressing news: a student at her daughter’s Pennsylvania high school was making AI-generated pornographic material using the daughter’s image.

He was using an artificial intelligence image-editing app called Movely to create sexual videos from pictures of her daughter and five other girls.

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© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

© Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Downing Street delivered a rare rebuke to a senior member of Donald Trump’s administration

Asked why the Lib Dems were opposed to a third runway at Heathrow when they professed to be in favour of growth, Cooper said she did not accept that a third runway would produce all the benefits its supporters claimed.

She explained:

On Heathrow, it is clear from looking at all of the economic analysis of airport growth over the last few years that many of the promises made by all sorts of different airport companies simply haven’t come to bear.

The promise of higher wage jobs hasn’t been substantiated. Often it’s lower paid jobs, and often not as many as they’ve claimed.

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© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

by Michael Nevradakis Ph.D., Activist Post: State health departments can now purchase this season’s COVID-19 vaccines for low-income children through the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program. Vaccine advocates had complained about a delay — but families and pediatricians concerned about vaccine safety criticized the decision. “The days of just injecting everyone without considering the individual […]

The BBC has been accused of using its Bitesize website to push open borders, Net Zero and woke ideology on children as young as 11, teaching them that more immigration is great and anyone who disagrees is likely a bigot.

The post BBC Bitesize Accused of ‘Brainwashing’ Schoolchildren with Left-Wing Views on Migration and Net Zero appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

The driver of the vehicle is in custody, and two juveniles were in the vehicle, according to Wichita police department

Two people, including a child, were killed during a soccer game in Wichita, Kansas, when a person drove a vehicle through the field at Stryker soccer complex, police have confirmed. Multiple other people were injured.

The driver of the vehicle is in custody, Aaron Moses of the Wichita police department said Saturday in a news conference. There were two juveniles in the vehicle, he said.

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© Photograph: Wyatt Glosson/KAKE-TV/AP

© Photograph: Wyatt Glosson/KAKE-TV/AP

© Photograph: Wyatt Glosson/KAKE-TV/AP

To protest against shameful conditions in schools is entirely legitimate. The government’s response is not

As a secondary school pupil in 1994, I took part in protests against a reform that would have allowed French employers to pay young people below the minimum wage. Our campaign was successful, but if we had had to face the terrifying police response unleashed on student protesters in France over recent weeks, I would have stayed at home.

A 14-year-old boy, Eden, suffered a fractured jaw and had teeth knocked out after a police teargas grenade struck him in the face. Sixteen-year-old Maël lost the sight in one eye allegedly after being struck by a shot from an LBD, a form of rubber-bullet launcher. Evan, 15, had his hand blown off in an explosion involving a police stun grenade. And in Dunkirk, a police SUV is alleged to have driven repeatedly at groups of secondary school pupils, as an officer could be heard saying: “Come closer, we’ll smash their fucking faces in.” Accounts from children left terrified by brutal treatment in police custody describe traumatic experiences with severe psychological and physical consequences.

Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, film-maker, activist and Guardian Europe columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Tonny Linke/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tonny Linke/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tonny Linke/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

At least 350 children remain in custody at this time, where they face harsh conditions, including torture, food deprivation, isolation, and denial of medical care.

Israel is restricting prosthetics and rehabilitation equipment from entering Gaza, leaving thousands of children waiting for a medical evacuation that may never come.

A Missouri judge who locked two children in jail cells because he was frustrated by their resistance to a parental custody decision is liable for violating their Fourth Amendment rights, a federal appeals court ruled this week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected Taney County Judge Eric Eighmy's claim that he was shielded by qualified immunity, a doctrine that blocks federal civil rights claims unless they allege a violation of "clearly established" law.

"A reasonable judge should have known better," Judge David Stras writes in an opinion joined by the two other members of the 8th Circuit panel. "The law was 'clearly established' enough" to "place the issue 'beyond debate.'"

Institute for Justice attorney Dylan Moore, who wrote an 8th Circuit brief arguing against immunity for Eighmy and participated in oral arguments, welcomed the decision. "Every reasonable person knows that a judge can't throw children in jail for no good reason," he said. "Yet Judge Eighmy claimed qualified immunity shielded him from accountability anyway because no prior case told him that imprisoning innocent kids is unconstitutional. That defense is ridiculous, and we are thrilled that the court saw through it. When government officials commit such obvious constitutional violations, qualified immunity should never enter the picture."

The incident at the center of the case happened after an October 2019 custody hearing involving Kadan Rockett, then 14, and his 12-year-old sister, Brooklyn, who had achieved a modicum of fame as magicians performing on America's Got Talent. Their divorced parents, Bart Rockett and Kami Ballard, agreed that Ballard, who at that point lived in Missouri, would have primary custody of the children, while Rockett, who was living in California, would be "responsible for them at the beginning of each month and 'during TV pilot season.'" But Kadan and Brooklyn did not want to go home with their mother, which led to an argument in the lobby of the courthouse.

Eighmy intervened, telling Kadan and Brooklyn to come with him to a conference room, where he informed them that they had to leave with Ballard. "The children would not budge, even after the judge mentioned that the other option was foster care," Stras notes. "Frustrated, Judge Eighmy had the children follow him again, this time to a waiting area in the courthouse's juvenile division." A few minutes later, Eighmy "led them down a hallway to two holding cells."

Outside the cells, Eighmy again threatened Kadan and Brooklyn with foster care, but they were still unmoved. "Lock them up," the judge told an officer, who "patted them down and ordered them to remove their socks and shoes" before confining them in separate cells.

It is not clear exactly how much time Kadan and Brooklyn spent in the cells. The Institute for Justice says "about an hour," while Stras says "the time spent in the holding-cell area was between twenty and forty minutes." In any case, the children's respect for Eighmy's authority had improved by the time he came back. He "asked them one more time whether they would leave with their mother," Stras writes. "This time, they both nodded yes, so he let them go."

In June 2021, Rockett, the children's father, sued Eighmy on their behalf under 42 USC 1983, which authorizes claims against state or local officials who violate constitutional rights under color of law. In his motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Eighmy argued that he was protected by judicial immunity, which is absolute with respect to a judge's official duties. U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool disagreed, and the 8th Circuit affirmed that ruling in 2023, noting that Kadan and Brooklyn were beyond Eighmy's contempt power because they were not parties to the custody case and that "judges do not do double duty as jailers."

Eighmy reiterated his judicial immunity claim in a motion for summary judgment, and Harpool rejected it again. After the trial began, Eighmy claimed qualified immunity twice, once after all the evidence had been submitted and again after the jury's verdict in favor of Kadan and Brooklyn. Harpool denied him that defense both times.

The jury ultimately awarded Kadan and Brooklyn $5,000 each in damages, and Harpool added about $327,000 in attorney fees. Eighmy appealed again, reiterating his judicial immunity claim. But the appeals court ruled that he had abandoned that argument by failing to raise it during the trial or after the verdict. So Eighmy was left with qualified immunity, which the appeals court said he did not deserve.

Eighmy clearly violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable seizures, Stras says, because he "did not have 'probable cause to believe that [the children had] committed' an offense, much less one that justified placing them in a holding cell. Rather, their only misdeed was one every parent knows well: resisting authority. Even in the context of legal-custody proceedings, refusing to leave with a parent is not a jailable offense. Nor were there 'exigent circumstances' arising out of danger to themselves or others."

Did Eighmy's authority as a judge give him extra leeway? Nope. "Criminal contempt was off the table because the children were neither parties to the custody case nor present inside the courtroom," Stras notes. "Nor could the power to punish a party for violating an injunction have provided the justification, given that Judge Eighmy never issued one."

Eighmy's motive for jailing the children does not change that analysis. "We have no doubt that Judge Eighmy believed he was acting in 'good faith,' and possibly even in the children's best interests, by detaining them," Stras writes. "But good faith in the Fourth Amendment context is about reasonable reliance, either on binding appellate precedent or a warrant issued by a 'neutral magistrate.'"

What about Eighmy's argument that he had no way of knowing his actions were unconstitutional? "The law in this area" was "clearly established," Stras says. "'[I]t would have been sufficiently clear [to] every reasonable official,' Judge Eighmy included, that locking up two children for refusing to follow directions violated the Fourth Amendment. As we put it over a decade and a half ago, long before the events in this case, '[i]t is clearly established that a warrantless arrest, unsupported by probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment."

That principle was so well established, in fact, that Kadan and Brooklyn, neither of whom had attended law school, took it for granted. "I don't know how you have a right to lock us up," Kadan told Eighmy when he threatened to jail them, according to Rockett's amended complaint. "We have done nothing wrong." The complaint says Brooklyn raised the same point. "How can you just lock up kids?" she asked. "This isn't legal. We've done nothing wrong."

Given Eighmy's obvious disregard for Kadan and Brooklyn's Fourth Amendment rights, "we are not concerned about the lack of a prior case" with "fundamentally similar" facts, Stras says. "Indeed, given how clear the law is, it would have been surprising to find one." He quotes an observation that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made as a 10th Circuit judge: "Sometimes the most obviously unlawful things happen so rarely that a case on point is itself an unusual thing."

The post The 8th Circuit Rejects Qualified Immunity for a Judge Who Jailed 2 Kids for 'Refusing To Follow Directions' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

“No Palestinians in the West Bank are exempt from this threat, including Christian communities and institutions,” said Bishop Dr Imad Haddad of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land