Judge Deborah Boardman Should Be Impeached

In 2022, Nicholas Roske traveled across the country with a gun and burglary tools, prepared to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He confessed that he was angry about the Court’s likely reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Judge Deborah Boardman has just sentenced Roske to eight years in prison, “far below federal guidelines and lenient even by the standards of some nonviolent offenses,” Ilya Shapiro writes. “Such a response to a premeditated assassination attempt on a sitting justice cannot be squared with the seriousness of the crime or the need to deter political violence.”

Boardman appears to have been influenced by ideology, citing Roske’s mental health issues and his alleged transgender status; she noted that President Trump’s executive orders would affect his ability to receive care for gender transition.

“However sincere her concern, the courtroom is not the place for identity-based indulgence,” Shapiro writes. “A judge’s duty is to apply the law evenhandedly, not to validate the defendant’s self-expression.”

Read his argument calling for Boardman’s impeachment.

Last month, Albany resident Lorenz Kraus admitted to strangling his father and choking his mother before burying them both in their backyard in 2017. He said they “were losing their independence,” and his “concern for their misery was paramount.” He thinks he did the right thing.

Disturbingly, his arguments echo those of right-to-die advocates who support New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act. If Governor Kathy Hochul signs it, assisted suicide would become legal, allowing people diagnosed with terminal illnesses to request lethal drugs.

“Once a government does this—even if only for those with a ‘terminal diagnosis’—it opens the floodgates,” Robert J. Bellafiore warns. “Why wouldn’t other, lesser forms of suffering also justify a patient’s wishing to die? Why would the state stand in the way of this supposedly most personal of decisions, even as it (rightly) spends millions annually on various suicide-prevention programs?”

Read his take.

For years now, the U.S. has been morphing into two separate countries. On one side are those who live in small towns and value religious faith and family life—the traditional values that Charlie Kirk held dear. On the other are college graduates who live in urban areas, often without children.

 “Which America will prevail? It’s complicated,” Joel Kotkin writes. “When people, especially the young, believe that they cannot earn their way to a better life, they may be tempted to trust their future to the benevolence of the state.” But long term, “prospects would seem to favor adherents of Charlie Kirk’s traditionalist vision,” he argues.

Ultimately, it will depend on what Millennials and Gen Z decide matters most to them.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, parents of students with disabilities can enroll them in private school if the children’s current education is failing to meet their needs, and the parents can seek reimbursement.

That’s exactly what one set of parents in New York did, but the state fought them at every step. Last week, in Board of Education v. E.L., a Manhattan federal judge rejected New York’s attempt to deny reimbursement for the religious-studies portion of the tuition.

It’s a major win for religious liberty, but as Michael A. Helfand, Nicole Stelle Garnett, and Sydney Altfield point out, “more than a dozen states continue to enforce policies that exclude religious schools and families from special-education programs, forcing parents to choose between their children’s educational needs and their religious commitments.”

Read their take.

What does it mean for American media when someone like Bari Weiss is tapped to lead one of the country’s legacy news outlets? Rafael Mangual, Jesse Arm, Carolyn Gorman, and Kerry Soropoulos analyze Paramount’s acquisition of The Free Press and the appointment of Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The panel explores Weiss’s track record of challenging orthodoxies and what her rise signals for journalism’s future. They also discuss California’s shifting political dynamics, spotlighting Representative Katie Porter’s potential gubernatorial run.

“Don’t worry, she’ll circle back to the good old USA in a few years and by the end of the decade will be superintendent of schools somewhere!”

Photo credit: MEHMET ESER / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images