Free Republic

George Washington University class-action settlement for COVID shutdown approved with more money for students, less for lawyers. Mere "overlap between a religious and political view" doesn't negate Title VII’s religious protections, 8th Circuit says.. If COVID-19 litigation were like the virus itself, George Washington University cleared its infection with a pricey therapeutic, the Mayo Clinic's infection rebounded, and Rutgers University faces an unusually virulent strain that could spread far and wide. A federal judge gave final approval to the $5.4 million class-action settlement submitted by GWU students and the private university blocks from the White House, in a tuition-refund lawsuit...

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.

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...

First Lady Jill Biden said Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” that we will “lose all of our rights” if another Republican is confirmed to the Supreme Court. Sara Haines said, “Women are likely to play a crucial role in November and we’ve heard bragging about stripping women’s reproductive rights, 14 states have a total ban on abortion, and now IVF is under attack. How dangerous a time is this for women, and how much worse could it get in a second or third as you mentioned Trump presidency?” Biden said, “It could get a lot worse under a Trump presidency....

Alarmed that concern over the poor results of Bidenomics for the average American "could persuade enough voters to reject the people's democracy that our Party has been trying to establish in this country" House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made an impassioned plea to voters "to stay the course with President Biden and give Democrats solid majorities in the House and Senate." Jeffries said "restoring the right of abortion granted to women by the US Supreme Court in its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling is our key talking point. In its 2022 Dobbs ruling the Court negated this universal right...

VIDEOIn what Bizarro World do we live in which the corrupt judge in the Manhattan trial is allowed to try to convict Trump while his daughter receives millions of dollars in bribe money from the Democrats while Justice Samuel Alito is demanded to recuse himself for flying a (GASP!) Revolutionary War era flag. Yes, it is now a Thought Crime to fly a Pine Tree aka "An Appeal To Heaven" flag according to those desperately attempting to get Alito to recuse himself from the Supreme Court cases involving Trump. The intro of the John Adams miniseries presents the now forbidden...

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that Democrats need to make the Supreme Court an election issue. Blumenthal said, “What I think we need to do now is put the Supreme Court on the ballot, say that membership on the Supreme Court is going to be a lasting impact of this election, and that the choices as to who will replace the current justices likely will be made by the next president. The choices we make in this election will determine whether or not the Supreme Court really reflects America. As to its plummeting support in the...

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito reportedly flew an upside-down American flag at his Alexandria, Virginia home in protest of the fraudulent 2020 presidential election. According to detailed reports by far-left The New York Times, photographs and eyewitness accounts from neighbors confirm that Justice Alito’s home displayed the inverted flag on January 17, 2021—just days after the January 6 Capitol event and shortly before Joe Biden’s inauguration. Justice Alito, in a statement to The New York Times, denied any personal involvement with the flying of the flag, attributing it to his wife, Martha-Ann Alito. According to Alito, the flag was a...

When you go into the voting booth, it’s easy to focus on the big races. Those high-profile contests at the federal and state level get the most coverage, and you can do your homework and learn about the candidates. If you have your ear to the ground or have decent local media, you can do the same with some local races. But every state has those down-ballot races that are often nonpartisan and don’t get much media coverage. It’s easy to ignore races like these when you don’t know anything about the candidates. Georgia has one of those races this...

In February of this year, Nassau County in Long Island, New York banned males from participating in girls' and women's sports. While many supported the move, protests broke out on the left and lawsuits were filed. On Friday, a judge on the state Supreme Court struck down the rule. This led to celebrations among trans activists, including New York Attorney General Letitia James. But those celebrations may turn out to be a bit premature. A closer reading of the ruling reveals that Judge Francis Ricigliano did not rule that the ban couldn't be enacted. Instead, he determined that the County...

Biden routinely misrepresents Donald Trump as a dictator, but the evidence shows convincingly that it’s Biden who acts in dictatorial fashion. There’s an old trial lawyers’ saying: “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.” That may be the only thing President Biden learned in law school—from which he was almost expelled for plagiarizing. He said the plagiarizing was due to ignorance; he had simply misunderstood the need to cite sources carefully. Now, fifty-nine years later, Biden routinely misrepresents...

Vice President Harris in a new interview expressed concern that the Supreme Court and its conservative majority could “undo recognized rights” after its 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. “This court has shown itself to be an activist court,” Harris told The New York Times. “I worry about fundamental freedoms across the board.“ The vice president said she didn’t want to raise any specific legal precedents the court could overturn because she didn’t want to sound “alarmist.” “But this court has made it very clear that they are willing to undo recognized rights,” she told the outlet.

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: Dick Van Dyke slams cable networks for not reporting on Trump’s clear path back to the White House due to presidential immunity

We all get to vote, but the ability to make legislation is no longer in the hands of the people we elect,’ Columbia law professor Philip Hamburger said. As the administrative state implements more regulations on Americans, a team of legal veterans has come together to fight the expansion of unelected government agency power. Sometimes, they even win. The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which consists of a team of 27 lawyers and support staff, including former judges, had four of the cases they litigated go before the Supreme Court in 2023. One case was decided in their favor, the...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted Sunday that the Supreme Court will send former President Trump’s immunity case back to the lower courts. “Well, I think the court’s gonna find that presidential immunity exists for President Trump like every other president, but you got to be within the scope of being president. I think they’ll send it back to the lower courts to find out exactly what actions fall within presidential immunity and what are considered personal. I think that’s the way this will end — there will be some immunity for some of the actions,” Graham said on CNN’s “State...

Retired Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Velshi” that the Supreme Court was fiddling as former President Donald Trump’s immunity claims are an “existential threat to America’s democracy.” Luttig said, “The Supreme Court has now fiddled while the Rome has almost burned to the ground, all but trivializing the existential threat to America’s democracy and the rule of law facing the country. America’s democracy and rule of law are the heart and soul of the nation. It’s our democracy and the rule of law that have made America the beacon of freedom from the world for almost...

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that after listening to oral arguments, the Supreme Court was close to “election interference” with their consideration of former President Donald Trump’s immunity claim. Brazile said, “I’ve never been here before, and I never thought in the years, almost 30 years that i worked in presidential politics and campaigns that I would ever have to figure out some talking points when your opponent in the case of Donald Trump is sitting in court all day and not on the campaign trail.”

Oral argument before the Supreme Court this week showed why it is nonsense to claim that anti-vagrancy laws violate the Constitution‘s Eighth Amendment provision against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Indeed, in the vernacular sense, what is cruel and unusual is a judicial edict that says law-abiding citizens must put up with public spaces featuring major health hazards, including even the plague. Yet that’s what some lower courts, bizarrely, say citizens must do. By any normal reading, the Eighth Amendment is intended to forbid overly harsh penalties, not to determine what sorts of conduct can or can’t be outlawed. Unfortunately, the...

The lawyer representing special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday asserted that the reason former President Donald Trump is the first president to face criminal charges is because his predecessors did not commit any crimes. Department of Justice counselor to Smith, Michael Dreeben, went before the Supreme Court to argue presidents should not have constitutional immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted during their presidency. Dreeben suggested that no president until Trump has ever committed crimes when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioned him about no other president having faced prosecutions. “Over the not-so-distant past … certain presidents have engaged in...

This week the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Fischer vs. United States. This concerns the severity of punishment given to many defendants convicted of trespassing in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Department of Justice was being questioned by several of the Associate Justices. Justice Paul Gorsuch wondered whether "initiating a false fire alarm like Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) did in order to obstruct a House vote on a bill would be sufficient to trigger a 20-year prison sentence?" Prelogar said "no, because the delay was only a few...