Free Republic

This column originally appeared in the January 27th print edition of National Review: America is a land of acronyms, and, useful as they are, acronyms can quickly curdle into jargon. SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation" — i.e., using legal action to cow an opponent into silence, and withdrawal from the public square. It was coined in the Eighties by Penelope Canan and George W. Pring at the University of Denver, and in the Nineties they turned it into a book: SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. And it proved so influential that by the Oughts various jurisdictions...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A state appeals court issued a favorable ruling Tuesday for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in a lawsuit over a lavish 2000 Hollywood fundraising gala. A three-judge panel of the 2nd Appellate District ordered a Superior Court judge to reconsider the senator's motion to remove her from the lawsuit filed by businessman Peter F. Paul, who bankrolled the event. Paul alleged in a February 2004 lawsuit that Clinton; her husband, former President Bill Clinton; her former national finance director, David Rosen, and others fraudulently induced him to underwrite and executive produce the star-studded gala that attracted celebrities...