Free Republic

On July 31, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong denied the motion to dismiss the lawsuit in a 20-page letter, saying that customers "could believe — erroneously — that the products originated in Texas." "Though it is true that the imagery of the solo white star and lassoing caricature are not exclusive to the state of Texas, taking the imagery and text of the label as a whole, this argument does not discount the possibility that a reasonable consumer would believe that the products are based in or originate from Texas." The class action lawsuit, filed on September 12, 2022,...

Republican presidential candidate former Vice President Mike Pence said Monday on FNC’s “Americas Newsroom” that the only way former President Donald Trump could solve the Ukraine war in a day was if he gave Vladimir Putin what he wanted. When asked how the war ends, Pence said, “I think it ends by giving the Ukrainians what they need to win.” He continued, “My former running mate likes to talk about solving it in a day. The only way you would solve this war in a day is if you gave Vladimir Putin what he wanted.”

A super-PAC aligned with former Vice President Mike Pence has launched a new ad in Iowa accusing former President Donald Trump of being “an apologist for villains and dictators.” The advertisement, launched Thursday from Committed to America, a group Pence supports, includes clips of Trump shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. “America doesn’t stand with thugs and dictators. We confront them,” a narrator says in the ad as Trump’s footage plays. “Or at least we did.”

Move over, Kato Kaelin. Meet America's newest goofus in the legal system, Kato Crews. According to the Washington Examiner: Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) backed another one of President Joe Biden's judicial picks into a legal corner after the nominee admitted to not knowing a criminal law doctrine known as a Brady motion. Colorado Magistrate Judge Kato Crews was before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, where lawmakers from both sides ask questions to inquire about the qualifications of the president's nominees. The 1963 Brady motion is one of the most basic laws of fairness in the judicial system -- mandating...

Judge Kato Crews, nominee for US District Court for the District of Colorado, appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday as part of his confirmation hearings and became the latest nominee who was unable to answer a basic legal question by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). Crews, who currently serves as a federal magistrate in Colorado, was unable to describe what the landmark US Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland was about. Brady, decided in 1963, “held that withholding exculpatory evidence violates due process ‘where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.'” Seems like a pretty important case (and principle)...

One of Biden’s judicial nominees is seeing his past actions come back to haunt him, as a sick incident from earlier in his career was brought up during his confirmation hearing. On Wednesday, Michael Delaney, who was nominated for a seat on the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the First Circuit, was grilled by Senate Republicans at his confirmation hearing. The senators probed for details regarding how a prestigious New Hampshire private school Delaney represented dealt with a sexual assault case in 2015. The case in question revolved around 15-year-old Chessy Prout, who was raped by a male student...

A federal judge in New Jersey on Tuesday iced a new law celebrated by liberals that would allow the state to shut down, and likely bankrupt, the firearms industry if a single gun were misused in a crime. U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi, a Biden appointee, said that he agreed with the gun industry that the New Jersey law was likely unconstitutional and granted the National Shooting Sports Foundation a preliminary injunction. The judge, in a 20-page opinion, said that the New Jersey law signed last summer by Gov. Phil Murphy ignored a larger federal law that protects the...

by Becca LondonAt the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, several Biden nominees for Federal judicial positions appeared before Judiciary Committee members for questions. But one group of questions in particular is causing shock and even anger among the public as the video starts to go viral. The questions were posed by Lousiana Senator John Kennedy (R) to state Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, who was nominated by Biden for the lifetime position of U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Washington. The "answers" were non-existent. Kennedy began by asking Judge Bjelkengren, about Article V of the US Constitution. Bjelkengren responded, "Article V...

A panel of three federal judges in South Carolina ruled Friday the state’s 1st District was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and ordered state lawmakers to redraw the congressional map before any more elections can be held. The decision gave lawmakers until March to draw new lines for the district, which runs along the state’s southern coast and is currently represented by Republican Nancy Mace. The ruling is the latest in suits over this decade’s congressional redistricting based on the 2020 census results, including in states such as Florida and Texas. An individual voter and the state’s NAACP filed the lawsuit...

A homosexual federal judge has endorsed a Colorado state LGBT agenda point signed into law by a gay governor that imposes viewpoint discrimination on Christian counselors, threatening them with so-called "unprofessional conduct" charges if they encourage clients who want to rid themselves of same-sex attractions to do just that. They can, however, encourage clients to pursue homosexual behavior. It's part of a worldwide agenda against the fact that some people want to leave homosexuality, and, in fact, do. Such cases destroy the LGBT community's claim that people are "born" that way.

Judge Todd Edelman had been nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court of WashingtonPresident Biden's nominee for District of Columbia District Court, who once released a man later involved in the murder of a 10-year-old, failed to get enough votes to clear the Judiciary Committee. So, his nomination will expire with the end of the 117th Congress. President Biden nominated Judge Todd Edelman in September to serve on the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. Edelman currently sits on the district's Superior Court, where he presided over a case involving Christian Wingfield. Wingfield was awaiting trial for illegal possession...

In Chiles v. Salazar, (D CO, Dec. 19, 2022), a Colorado federal district court rejected constitutional challenges to Colorado's ban on mental health professionals engaging in conversion therapy for minors who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming. In a suit brought by a licensed counselor, the court found no violation of plaintiff's free speech rights because the Minor Therapy Conversion Law regulates professional conduct rather than speech. Any speech that is affected is incidental to the professional conduct. The court also found no violation of plaintiff's free exercise rights, saying in part: According to Ms. Chiles, the...

In 2021, the Washington State legislature passed a ban on future sales or manufacturing of magazines, or other feeding devices which hold over 10 rounds. It does not include .22 rimfire tubular magazines. From the law:(36)”Large capacity magazine” means an ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition, or any conversion kit, part, or combination of parts, from which such a device can be assembled if those parts are in possession of or under the control of the same person, but shall not be construed to include any of the following:The Washington State magazine...

by Brian Hayes | BorderPACYou may recall our report nearly 3 years ago about an arrogant liberal Massachusetts judge who was indicted on charges that she helped an illegal alien — who had been twice-deported — sneak out a back door of the courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.Hard to imagine a more egregious violation of the rule of law from a sitting judge than that. She left her indictment in tears, devastated -- as she should have been -- that she was going to be held accountable for her betrayal of her oath:Or so we thought.Joseph was...

European countries can withstand Russia’s gas cuts this winter as supply headaches may have been “successfully solved”, according to analysis by a leading US bank. Goldman Sachs said the price of gas was likely to more than halve this winter as efforts by EU countries’ to avoid big shortages this winter prove effective.

A federal district court judge in Michigan on Thursday denied Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s efforts to dismiss a lawsuit against her office for failing to remove deceased registrants from the state’s voter rolls. In November, the Public Interest Legal Foundation filed the suit, claiming their analysis determined 25,975 dead Michiganders were registered to vote as of August 2021. Of those, 23,663 had been dead for five or more years, while 17,479 had been dead for more than a decade and 3,596 had been dead for at least 20 years.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has failed to convince a judge to dismiss a case that could force the state to remove 25,975 deceased people from its voter rolls. Benson moved for dismissal of a case brought against her in November 2021 by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) for her failure to clean up the state’s voter registration rolls—in an alleged violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. On Aug. 25, Benson’s motion to dismiss the case was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. The court also...

...and the reasons why there is less space for any debate or dissent since at least 2002: [link to deBoer article at URL and below]

January 6 protester Dustin Thompson was found guilty on Thursday of a felony and several misdemeanors. After Dustin Thompson’s guilty verdict was read, he was removed from the courtroom in shackles, with little objection from his attorney. It wasn’t expected that he’d be ordered detained like this before sentencing. As two older security guards removed his belt, ring, and personal items from his pockets, Judge Reggie Walton said in a harsh tone that Thompson was “weak-minded.” ____________________________ Judge Walton, “Trump is a charlatan who caused an insurgency. He is tearing America apart. That’s the reason why our country is falling...

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced Monday night that they will vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, making them the second and third Republicans to confirm their vote for President Joe Biden’s court pick. “After multiple in-depth conversations with Judge Jackson and deliberative review of her record and recent hearings, I will support her historic nomination to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court,” Murkowski said in a statement. Romney soon followed in a tweet: