Free Republic

The ACLU, another polarizing organization, was willing to defend the NRA in court. That should tell you that some things aren't partisan.What do the National Rifle Association (NRA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and nine U.S. Supreme Court justices from five presidential administrations all have in common? That list is likely relatively small. But at least one area of overlap was made evident Thursday when the Court published a unanimous ruling that a New York government official allegedly violated the First Amendment by pressuring insurers and banks to sever business ties with the NRA, which the ACLU is representing....

MAGA Continues to November, Stronger Than Ever

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday called on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to testify for the “political prosecution” of former President Donald Trump. Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, teed up a hearing where both men will testify in front of the Weaponization of Federal Government Subcommittee on June 13. “This hearing will examine actions by state and local prosecutors to engage politically motivated prosecutions of federal officials,” Mr. Jordan wrote. “In particular the recent political prosecution of President Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.”

During patriotic holidays, the news media applaud the Founding Fathers. But rarely does anyone mention some important facts about them: that they were smugglers, tax evaders, and traitors. Not only is this important, it is also praiseworthy; it produced the most advanced civilization ever known. The Revolution is often said to have begun in 1775 at the Battle of Lexgton [sic]. In truth, it began in the 16th century when the first colonists began traveling to the New World. Consider the hardships these people faced. Abandoning their relatives and friends, they boarded small leaky boats like the Mayflower—which was only...

Joe Biden‘s campaign said, with no hint of irony, that Donald Trump’s conviction on Thursday is evidence that “no one is above the law.” “In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement. “Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain,” Tyler said. “But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at...

Students who sued the University of Chicago for tuition refunds due to COVID-19 closures have reached a nearly $5 million settlement agreement with the school. The private Illinois university finalized the class-action lawsuit settlement with the students last week, agreeing to pay $4.95 million, according to the Chicago Sun Times. Students affected by the university’s 2020 decision to switch to online classes due to COVID-19 could receive $25 or more from the settlement, the report states.

News Analysis: After a bogus FBI probe, two impeachments, one Mar-A-Lago raid, four indictments and multiple overturned ballot disqualifications, Democrats finally got what they wished. For now ... In one of the darkest hours in American history, after an ex-president for the first time was convicted in criminal court, Alvin Bragg could only smile and banter with laughing reporters. “I did my job,” the Manhattan district attorney declared to a breezy, whimsical news conference that belied the gravity of having just secured 34 felony convictions that could send Donald Trump to prison for life. That job was not begun by...

Top Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin argued in the New York Times this week that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito could, in theory, be forced to step down from cases related to the January 6 Capitol riots. In a guest essay for the New York Times on Wednesday, Raskin detailed ways Thomas and Alito could be forced to recuse themselves from the upcoming Trump v. United States and Fischer v. United States, both involving former President Trump's role during the Capitol protests. "Of course, Justices Alito and Thomas could choose to recuse themselves — wouldn’t that be nice? But begging...

From Justice Sotomayor's opinion today in NRA v. Vullo (the NRA was represented by the ACLU, with David Cole arguing before the Court; by William Brewer, Sarah Rogers & Noah Peters of Brewer Attorneys & Counselors; and by me): "[A.] Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity's "threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion" against a third party "to achieve the suppression" of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment. Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan (1963). Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to...

Temporary Platform and Resolutions as Amended and Adopted by the 2024 State Convention of the Republican Party of Texas

Verdict in.

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Thursday, ruling that the New York State Department of Financial Services violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights by effectively blacklisting the group. The decision, surprisingly authored by far-left Justice Sonia Sotomayor, affirmed that the NRA “plausibly alleged” that its free speech rights were stifled by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) under directives perceived to be politically motivated.

SCOTUS ruled in National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, The opinion was written by Sotomayor. The court Holding: The NRA plausibly alleged that former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services Maria Vullo violated the First Amendment by coercing regulated entities to terminate their business relationships with the NRA in order to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy. The decision is unanimous, with concurring opinions from Gorsuch and Jackson. Link to opinion here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-842_6kg7.pdf "For the reasons discussed above, the Court holds that the NRA plausibly alleged that Vullo violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated...

Judge Merchan’s Jury Instructions Prove Trump’s Trial Is About Power, Not The LawThe raw exercise of power Judge Merchan has displayed against Trump throughout this trial is meant to demoralize and threaten his supporters.If you’ve been following former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York, you might have seen the shocking news that the judge in that trial, Juan Merchan, issued bizarre and plainly unconstitutional jury instructions on Wednesday, telling jurors they need not agree on what crime Trump allegedly committed to reach a unanimous guilty verdict.You read that right. According to Judge Merchan, the jury could come back...

Well...okay.Maybe the man didn't EXACTLY say that. I might have employed a little poetic license, but come on now - the effect is the same.He said "no" to politely worded requests for recusal in a couple kind of important cases coming up that Dems would dearly love to puncture the conservative court majority in any way they could.MY WIFE IS FOND OF FLYING FLAGSSupreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday rejected Democratic lawmakers’ requests that he recuse himself from key cases related to former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot following reports that flags linked to...

The justices ruled unanimously in Cantero v. Bank of America, N. A., holding that the lower court did not apply the standard for determining when state laws that regulate national banks are preempted “in a manner consistent with Dodd-Frank and Barnett Bank.” In National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, the court ruled that allegations that the head of the NY Department of Financial Services violated the free speech rights of the NRA when she allegedly pressured entities that did business with the group to cut ties with the NRA “if true, state a First Amendment claim.” On remand, the...

In the October 2023 term, the Supreme Court heard three significant cases involving the Second Amendment. Only one of these cases, Rahimi, was directly about the Second Amendment.Supreme Court terms begin with the first week in October. Court sessions usually end by the last week of June, occasionally extending into the first week of July. Cases decided by the court are published during the term before the Court recesses near the end of June. During the recess from the end of June to October, the court is busy studying cases that have been argued and working on their opinions.We should...

Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Wednesday that it is possible New York Judge Juan Merchan is not dismissing alternate jurors in order to deal with a holdout that will not convict former President Donald Trump. Merchan issued instructions to the jury of seven men and five women Wednesday, pointing them to some of the key evidence in the case prior to the panel beginning its deliberations. Dershowitz admitted he was speculating during Wednesday’s episode of “The Dershow” about Merchan’s reason for keeping the alternates available, but said he had seen a judge in an unrelated case make a similar...

Trump has debuted a new line of attack in his criminal trial. "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE CHARGES ARE IN THIS RIGGED CASE," he wrote on Truth Social. Prosecutors charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree over a year ago. The jurors in former President Donald Trump's criminal trial are thinking deeply about the charges. After just a few hours of deliberating Wednesday, they asked the judge to read back four crucial segments of the testimony they heard. They honed in on sections that indicate they could be seeking to understand granular details...

MESQUITE, Texas — In a warehouse off Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway in an industrial area outside Dallas, the future of American military ammunition production is coming online. Here, in the Pentagon’s first new major arms plant built since Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkish workers in orange hard hats are busy unpacking wood crates stenciled with the name Repkon, a defense company based in Istanbul, and assembling computer-controlled robots and lathes. The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155 mm howitzers that have become crucial to Ukraine’s war effort. Ukraine fired 4,000 to 7,000 such...