As the punch line to an old joke about lawyers goes, it’s a good start. The American Civil Liberties Union, theoretically a non-ideological defender of the Constitution but in practice increasingly hard left, is running into financial difficulties and just announced (memo to staffers here)  layoffs for 7 percent of its lawyers. Why the difficulties? It’s a little unclear, but Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit writes, “What I hear is that they’ve moved too far left, too fast, and it’s hurt their donations.” The organization itself cites something that happened 6 years ago in its memo – the ending of a $22 million annual grant from a family it does not identify, owing to their investment losses (presumably in the 2008 stock market crash). But six years is a lot of time to adjust hiring and other expenses to diminished income, not to mention scare up other donors. And just five months ago, the ACLU trumpeted a grant of $50 million from...(Read Full Post)