Lori Lightfoot’s Defense: My Racist Refusal To Be Interviewed By White Journalists Lasted Only Two Days
“Lightfoot’s attorneys state that her policy of only granting interviews to journalists of color was in place for a specific two-day window, and therefore their request for a preliminary injunction is moot.”
In May, embattled Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proudly declared she was granting in-person interviews only to non-white journalists. You could almost hear the cheers and the rallying cries she expected to meet this announcement, the multitudes of non-white politicians refusing to be interviewed by non-white journalists. This was a win, Lightfoot appears to have dreamily imagined.
Her refusal to grant interviews to white journos was a great big middle finger to “white supremacy” that would launch a domino effect, shutting out white journalists from covering black pols forever. White journos are the ‘enemy,’ having been born white and therefore evil. And stuff. This move would skyrocket Lightfoot to the very top of the seriously lame Democrat bench. She’d be a shoo-in for the 2024 or 2028 Democrat presidential nomination.
Silly, silly Lightfoot. She actually bought the whole Democrat fable that America is a racist nation just bursting at the seams to unleash black power. Or something. However, no one, not one single black elected official, took up her mantle and refused interviews with white reporters. Not one. She was out there all alone, and to no one’s surprise (except hers), she was widely lambasted by the very leftists whose lies she believed.
But politics, and increasingly ‘journalism,’ is built on sand, on clouds, on dreams, on lies.
Lightfoot, who probably was too stupid not to see the anti-American Marxist “antiracism” scheme for what it is, is now suffering the consequences of her ignorance and gullibility. There is no plan, none at all, to marginalize all white people, to “other” the white elites in whatever Democrat-friendly field, in this case journalism.
She just thought that was the plan, but she was wrong. So wrong. This “struggle” is not about race, it’s about power.
The Daily Caller Foundation and Judicial Watch sued Lightfoot for racial discrimination, and this is a charge that she and her defense team don’t appear to deny.
Instead, her defense team’s argument is that she violated the Constitution by discriminating against journalists based solely on their race for a period of only two days, so . . . that’s hardly a violation at all!
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
The Daily Caller Foundation reports:
Attorneys for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot are arguing that a preliminary injunction against her for racial discrimination is unnecessary because she only racially discriminated against reporters for a strict two-day period.
Lightfoot is being sued by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) and Judicial Watch for not granting an interview to DCNF reporter Thomas Catenacci, who is white. In their most recent court filing, Lightfoot’s attorneys state that her policy of only granting interviews to journalists of color was in place for a specific two-day window, and therefore their request for a preliminary injunction is moot.
In the days approaching her two-year anniversary as Mayor of Chicago, local reporters announced that Lightfoot’s office was only granting one-on-one interviews to black and brown journalists. Catenacci contacted Lightfoot’s office on three separate occasions over a five-day span in May and was not granted an interview, prompting the lawsuit from DCNF with the help of Judicial Watch.
An initial hearing was held on June 7, at which a district judge ordered Lightfoot’s office to file a declaration under oath clarifying the status of the racially discriminatory policy and whether it would be in place going forward.
The lawsuit and subsequent preliminary injunction motion assert that Lightfoot’s refusal to be interviewed by Catenacci violates the Daily Caller News Foundation’s and his First Amendment rights and Catenacci’s right to equal protection.
“Mayor Lightfoot’s office today shockingly confirmed to a federal court that she discriminates on the basis of race in the conduct of her public office,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This racism is blatantly unconstitutional.”
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https://legalinsurrection.com/wp-admin/upload.php?item=356339
That’s the last link in the article. Simply leads to a wordpress error page stating:
You do not have sufficient permissions to access this admin page.
Reason: The current user doesn’t have the “upload_files” capability that is required to access the “Media” menu item.
Just thought you’d want to know.
So what will be done to the racist mayor?
In our lifetimes? Nothing.
Best case from her perspective? Judicial admonishment. Followed by a brief media blip putting this back in the spotlight.
Worst case? Her policy is ruled unconstitutional, she gets hit in subsequent case for damages in a personal capacity. + above
Very worst? Someone finds another area in which arguably the policy of the Mayor or the City is to use race discrimination. That is used as a lever to force wide reaching discovery to determine just how much racial discrimination is official policy in Chicago.
Lots of lawsuits, lots of damages and or large settlements plus consent decrees preventing future discrimination with outside monitors to enforce the decree. + above
This is a very stupid woman. But very useful to the Soros Junta.
It’s up to us whether this malignant idiot is tolerated in high office. We achieve this by electing REAL Republicans, not th sh-t currently in office, save for a handful of people.
“So what will be done to the racist mayor?”
Likely she will be your next president, the way things are going. I assume by 2024 the democrats will have perfected voting so that she wins with 98.4% of the vote.
Everything is fine because she was only racist for 2 days. Three is the limit I think.
As I have said before: Lightfoot’s mistake was to stupidly announce this policy publicly. She could have said nothing and easily frozen out white journalists. And in the microscopic chance that some white lefty journalist squawked, Lightfoot could have played the victim card (“I am giving POC their fair chance….systemic racism…..white supremacy….you hate black and brown people…”).
The need of Communists to virtue signal in public (which is stronger that their need to breathe) is what made her look bad in this case.
You and me both. No need to draw unwanted attention unless of course, the unhealthy need for attention and outside praise or validation was the point.
I am actually in favor of Beetle’s racist policy. Why should journalists of all people be spared from the pernicious effects of anti-White hysteria? CRT is all good n’ stuff until it actually affects the scumbag journos falling all over themselves to shill for this racist trash?
Can you imagine the outcry if a white person said “It’s okay, we only had a blatantly racist policy in place for two days…that makes it okay and moot, right?” The outcry from the race hustlers would be, rightly, deafening.
Our outcry against the likes of Lightfoot should be the ‘imagined’ outcry from the likes of Lightfoot’s handlers (she’s just a useful idiot – accent on ‘idiot’ – just like Di Blasio and Garcetti, and Kamala Harris) if a white person did what Lightfoot did.
Until we do, we’re just bystanders to our own destruction.
If the policy was no longer in place then that would make the motion for an injunction moot. The only questions a court can consider when deciding whether to grant an injunction are (a) how much harm will the plantiff likely suffer if it’s not granted, and (b) how much harm will the defendant suffer if it is granted. If the policy is no longer in effect then the harm to the plaintiff from not granting it is zero. That makes the motion moot, and courts cannot hear moot cases.
Unless there were actual damages during the period the policy was in place and Plaintiff seeks damages.
That’s completely irrelevant to the injunction. Even if the plaintiff has suffered millions of dollars’ worth of damages, if the offense is no longer happening and is not likely to resume, there are no grounds for an injunction. Damages are what the trial will be about, if it doesn’t settle before there is one.
It may be moot for purposes of the injunction. That doesn’t mean it was okay in the first place. It also doesn’t mean that such a policy would be okay in the future. I understand benefit of the doubt, but at this point, there is no reason to believe they won’t enact similar policies in the future and withdraw them when they’re called out and exclaim “but we stopped” as though that makes it okay.
Nobody suggested it was OK in the first place. A motion for an injunction is not the time to make such suggestions. Presumably if it gets to trial the defense will try to make an argument for why it was OK. And it won’t be that it only lasted two days. But that’s way off in the future. Right now the only issue is the injunction, and to that the defense’s answer, that the policy is no longer in effect and won’t resume, is completely on point.
Milhouse, courts will occasionally (not always) proceed, even if the underlying circumstances are moot, with the understanding that those circumstances could be reimposed. Ms. Lightfoot swears that her policy was only in force for two days and now is withdrawn, so it is moot — but it, in the absence of the court’s ruling, be reimplemented next week, or next month. Therefore the court will step in. I suspect that is what will happen in this case.
On the contrary, to impose an injunction the court must have good reason to suppose the policy would otherwise be reimposed. The mayor’s word that it won’t be should be enough to prevent an injunction, unless there’s actual evidence that she’s likely to break that word.
Actual evidence? Oh, the snark writes itself…
Yes, actual evidence is needed. Snark is not enough.
Don’t laugh, there’s precedent. Most old-time lynchings lasted but a few minutes! She can always cite that….
Fuzzy, you know better than this. That is not their defense at all. That is their argument against an injunction, and if true it is a perfect argument. If the violation (if there ever was one) is no longer happening, and is not likely to happen again, then the plaintiff is not entitled to an injunction, and the court should not grant one. It’s moot.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the severity of the violation, (if there was one, which the defense is not conceding). It doesn’t matter if it was a serious crime, or if it lasted twenty-five years; so long as it’s been stopped, and the court has no reason to suppose it will restart, an injunction is off the table.
Whether there actually was a violation, and if so how severe it was, is a matter for the trial, if it ever gets that far.
If there was no value to interview Lori In the first place, then there was no loss.
Yeah, but the defense can’t say that.
In any case, an interview’s value is not related to the subject’s value. An interview with a notorious criminal on death row is very valuable. And there is inherent value in interviewing any mayor of a large city, no matter how worthless that person is.
I’ll have to take your word on the value of that interview.
She was only partly pregnant. It’s okay to be a raging bigot in short spurts. It’s okay as a tactic but not as a strategy.
Nobody has suggested any such thing.
You are the personification of the argument proving that the courts are NOT the proper venue for winning a political struggle. In fact, that is why we are losing. It is so easy to suck us into the left’s “polite” and “civilized” traps where we are reduced to isolated nattering nabobs arguing trivia in the dark.
We just refuse to carry the fight into OUR battlefields. That is why we lose. Too many pedantic know-it-all lawyers and not enough fighters.
MAGA BABY!!!
Right on!
Read this:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/06/14/the-coma-before-the-storm-n2590897
This is not a political question. The plaintiffs’ choice to take it to court, and make what I consider to be a frivolous legal claim, makes it a legal question. And injunctions aren’t (or shouldn’t be) handed out like candy. If the policy complained of is no longer in effect, that doesn’t mean the case is moot, but it does mean the motion for an injunction is.
Injuctive relief is avaiable for a threat of FUTURE harm:
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561