This week, we had some lawsuit news. First, Donald Trump lost a defamation lawsuit to a crazy lady, and now he has to pay $83 million. You’ll remember that Ron DeSantis decided to sign legislation that protected young children from LGBT indoctrination in schools. Disney, one of the biggest corporate promoters of LGBT activism, sued him. And the lost their case.

Here’s the first story about Trump, reported by Daily Wire:

A jury found former President Donald Trump should pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages in a defamation trial that ended on Friday.

The amount awarded to Carroll is well over three times more than her legal team asked for in its closing argument – $24 million – and more than eight times the amount Carroll requested in her initial lawsuit — $10 million, according to CNN.

The jury found that Trump owed Carroll $11 million to cover the costs of a campaign to repair the harm done to her reputation and $7.3 million to address the emotional harm the 80-year-old writer sustained from remarks Trump made in 2019 about her and her accusations of rape. The jury ordered Trump to pay another $65 million in punitive damages.

Trump likes to run his mouth when he has nothing to gain for his supporters, and everything to lose. And then he gets hammered for it. He lacks discipline. He lacks self-control.

Meanwhile, DeSantis got sued by Disney, except he got sued for doing the right thing for his supporters – he passed the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, and Disney was mad.

Daily Wire reported on his win:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis beat Disney on Wednesday after a federal judge tossed the company’s lawsuit that claimed the governor retaliated against the company.

The company filed the lawsuit after DeSantis dismantled a special Disney-controlled tax district that gave them the power to govern themselves, claiming that he retaliated against them for publicly criticizing his Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, which empowers parents to make the best decisions for raising their children and protects children from being exposed to dangerous leftist gender ideologies in school.

Disney employees have been involved in a lot of disgusting situations with kids. It’s nice when someone competent goes up against them, and wins. We need a winner. Someone who knows policy and the law. Someone with self-control, who isn’t an easy target for the secular left. Someone without baggage, who has won elections as a Congressman and as Governor of Florida. Twice.

Related posts on DeSantis’ achievements

• DeSantis wins again: Florida bans DEI programs at public colleges
• Promise to purge the FBI, and all other government agencies who discriminate against conservatives
• All he does is win: DeSantis cuts health care costs by importing Canadian drugs
• The DeSantis plan: pay teachers well, and put teacher unions out of business
• fires district attorneys who were elected with help from George Soros
• Mamas for DeSantis: Casey DeSantis champions parent’s rights at the national level
• high tourism and low unemployment
• six-week abortion ban
• no sex-reassignment surgeries on kids
• no pronouns required in Florida schools
• no kids at drag queen shows
• pre-game prayer is allowed
• universal school choice
• making collection of union dues optional for teachers
• flying illegal immigrants to Massachusetts
• elect conservatives to school boards
• teach students about the historical record of communism
• ban grooming of young children
• protect wildlife
• banning biological males from women’s sports
• punishing Big Tech social media companies for censoring conservatives

I’m sure that my readers who have been following the story of what happened in Canada with the Trudeau Liberal Party and the peaceful trucker protests in Ottawa will know how much the secular left loves to freeze the bank accounts of people who challenge them. Well, you might be surprised to find out that it happens in America, too. Well, with certain banks.

My podcast partner Rose sent me this article by Jeremy Tedesco of Alliance Defending Freedom, which appeared in the Daily Wire (full text archived).

It starts by talking about a New York State case that is going before the U.S. Supreme Court:

[T]he National Rifle Association is challenging New York’s attempt to coerce banks and insurance companies to withdraw services from the group. The NRA alleges that the Department of Financial Services — at the behest of then-Governor Andrew Cuomo — used its vast power to regulate “reputational risk” along with back-channel meetings, public investigations, and threats of fines to punish the group for its Second Amendment advocacy.

What I liked about this article, but you might find it disturbing, is the list of other times when banks tried to “de-bank” Christians and conservatives:

 As Alliance Defending Freedom points out in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in support of the NRA’s position, pro-life group Heartbeat International was recently canceled by its insurance provider over its “anti-abortion” advocacy.

He linked to a whole list of de-bankings here. Some of the victims are famous, like former Republican Senator Sam Brownback! And The Ruth Institute – I’ve blogged many times about the founder of The Ruth Institute, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse.

More from the article:

[…]Former Brexit leader Nigel Farage’s high-profile case resulted in the ouster of megabank NatWest’s CEO. Serial offender JPMorgan Chase’s hit list includes the Arkansas Family Council, Defense of Liberty, and U.S Ambassador Sam Brownback’s National Committee for Religious Freedom.

You can check how bad your bank is at this link (from the article). I was happy to see that my bank was pretty good, but I chose them after looking at their political donations on OpenSecrets.org. Mind you, I’m trying to switch over to a state-level bank right now.

But another step I took was to move to a red state, and that’s something that might help me in the future:

The solution to this problem may lie with the states. This state legislative season presents an opportunity for states interested in protecting against politicized de-banking to act. Any such law should focus on the worst actors – the largest banks and payment processors.

The conservative states are more likely to do something about this, just like you see Texas fighting back against Biden to secure the border. I can’t imagine why someone would live in a leftist state – it’s just too easy for them to persecute you there.

Mary from Marin tweeted out this article about California last night.  I expected it to be bad news, but it was good news. Gavin Newsom tried to force a preschool in El Cajon to deny their Christian convictions, and accept his atheist convictions. The school filed a lawsuit, they had a trial, and the school won. Pretty surprising for California! But this was more towards the San Diego end of it.

The article is from California Family Council:

The Newsom Administration’s California Department of Social Services (CDSS) tried but failed to force an El Cajon Christian preschool to abandon its religious beliefs on sexuality and gender or be kicked out of participating in a federally funded USDA food program. After the church filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Justice Department refused to defend the state’s actions and settled for nearly $200,000.

It’s wonderful that we have so many Christian lawyers. I know that I harp on how everyone has to do STEM degrees, but if you have a lot of family support, then it might be better to go to law school. Because look what you can do with that degree:

Attorneys for the Church of Compassion and its Dayspring Christian Learning Center were represented by the National Center for Law and Policy (NCLP), Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Advocates for Faith and Freedom (AFF). They filed a lawsuit and motion for preliminary injunction against the Biden administration and California state officials last year, challenging the suspension of the Church’s preschool from a federal food program due to their beliefs about human sexuality.

Comment from the ADF:

“Ironically, in the name of combatting discrimination, government officials have excluded the church and preschool from serving the El Cajon community based solely on their religious beliefs and exercise,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus. “This is antithetical to the First Amendment’s promise of religious freedom and only hurts needy families and children.”

So, the Christians who work at that school were seen as “good enough” to pay taxes to the government for this program, nut not good enough to be eligible for any grants. That’s always the way with the secular left. They think that taxpayers are smart enough to earn the money, but not smart enough to spend it. We need the secular left to tell us how to spend it.

Here’s the final result of the lawsuit ruling:

The settlement reinstated Dayspring in the Food Program, reimbursed suspended funds, removed the preschool from the National Disqualified List, and required the CDSS to issue clear guidance regarding the existence of exemptions for religious institutions in California’s food programs. The CDSS also agreed to pay $160,000 in legal fees. This outcome is a significant win for religious freedom in California and sets a precedent for similar religious institutions.

I thought this was interesting – the discrimination was caused by Joe Biden:

After the Biden administration expanded the definition of “sex” in Title IX to encompass sexual orientation and gender identity, California’s Department of Social Services (CDSS) implemented new mandates. But these new rules restricted religious organizations from participation in the food program if their orthodox biblical views on human sexuality affected they way they operated their church or ministry.

It’s so strange to me that people who claim to be religious vote for Joe Biden. And yet here he is going after people who take the Bible seriously. I guess the religious people who support him don’t really care about taking the Bible seriously.

Image credit: Babylon Bee