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Deepest blow yet to Trump’s phaseout ....Judge John D. Bates’s ruling would require a full restart, meaning even illegal immigrant “Dreamers” who’d never been approved before would now be able to apply for DACA.... judge imposed a 90-day delay on his own ruling to give the government a chance to reargue its case, but for now the ruling stands as the most severe blow yet to Mr. Trump’s phaseout. Judge Bates said the government’s reasoning for revoking DACA wasn’t convincing enough, and so it amounted to an “arbitrary and capricious” decision, which makes it illegal under the Administrative Procedures Act....

Lawyer who helped Hobby Lobby win before the Supreme Court will serve on Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Religious liberty advocates received a boost in federal courts after the Senate confirmed one of the nation's leading First Amendment attorneys to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Senate voted to approve President Trump's nominee, Kyle Duncan, to Louisiana's Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. Duncan is the former general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm that "exists to defend the free exercise of all faiths, from Anglican to Zoroastrian," as it says on...

Federal judges sit on the bench for life and can either uphold the law or rule like tyrants. This puts judicial appointments right near the top of the most important things a president can do. The newest Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, has already shown what a difference a constitutionalist can make. But we need many more to counter the hundreds of Clinton, Obama and Jimmy Carter-appointed judges who issue zany rulings that override common sense and thwart democratically enacted popular will. A case in point is U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, a 2010 Obama appointee. In March, he issued...

CONCORD —­ Mental health patients held in hospital emergency rooms awaiting involuntary admission to the state psychiatric hospital are still being denied due process, despite the fact that Health and Human Service officials said a program would be in place early this year to address the problem. A 90-day pilot was launched late last year involving four hospitals in the hope that the effort could be expanded to all 26 hospitals in the state in 2018. But the four hospitals — Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, Southern N.H. Medical Center in Nashua and Speare Memorial...

Senate Republicans, frustrated by delaying tactics imposed by Democrats on President Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees, are on the verge of altering the Senate rules in order to speed up the process. GOP lawmakers told the Washington Examiner Tuesday that momentum is building for a change in the Senate rules that would shorten the time frame allowed for lawmakers to debate each nominee. One proposal by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., would reinstate a temporary rules change made by Democrats in 2013 that reduced debate time from 30 hours to eight hours for most executive branch nominations and from 30...

ASHINGTON, DC – President Donald Trump announced his 12th wave of judicial nominees for 19 lifetime federal judgeships on Tuesday, including two short-listers for the U.S. Supreme Court. The president nominated three people for the U.S. courts of appeals: Justice Britt Grant currently serves on the Georgia Supreme Court, and is nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Grant is the former Georgia solicitor general who previously served in the Bush 43 White House and litigated at the powerhouse law firm Kirkland & Ellis. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and clerked for Judge...

Clare W. Bronfman, an heiress of the Seagram Company business empire, allegedly implanted a "key logger" virus on the computer of her late father, Edgar M. Bronfman Sr., so officials with the NXIVM corporation could secretly monitor his emails, including his exchanges with world leaders and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to court records. The extraordinary allegations are attributed to Kristen M. Keeffe, who was part of the inner circle that ran NXIVM, a "human development" organization that has been described by one expert as an "extreme cult." The accusations by Keeffe are contained in a transcript of a...

Hard to believe I have 50,000 comments. I am doing this because we have not done this in a long time and we used to enjoy seeing everyone's comment totals. Something to take our minds off the liberals trying to destroy the country.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Peace Cross, a monument dedicated to local residents killed in World War I, must be torn down. (Photo: The Washington Times/Zuma Press /Newscom) COMMENTARY BY Peter Parisi Peter Parisi is an editor and writer for The Daily Signal. When Republican congressional leaders went to the White House on Jan. 23, 2009—just three days into Barack Obama’s presidency—to discuss legislation, he helpfully reminded them that his policy preferences necessarily had to prevail because “elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” Obama is out of office now,...

WASHINGTON — It has been practically a given that anyone nominated for a federal judgeship by a Republican president had to pass an unspoken litmus test — usually on abortion but often on any number of divisive social issues. The Trump administration has a new litmus test: reining in what conservatives call “the administrative state.” With surprising frankness, the White House has laid out a plan to fill the courts with judges devoted to a legal doctrine that challenges the broad power federal agencies have to interpret laws and enforce regulations, often without being subject to judicial oversight. Those not...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted against one of President Trump’s judicial nominees simply because he is a white male. “The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum [the judicial nominee] speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President Trump’s selections for the federal judiciary,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Quattlebaum replaces not one, but two scuttled Obama nominees who were African-American.” The Democratic leader lamented the fact that the majority of Trump’s nominees were white. Regardless of Quattlebaum’s qualifications, Schumer thought he was unfit for the job due to his race.

President Trump just announced his tenth wave of judicial nominees -- who are they? Last week, I posted a roundup of the status of judicial nominations, for both circuit and district courts, for circuits up through and including the Fifth Circuit. Today I turn my attention to the Sixth through Eleventh Circuits. But after my earlier roundup, some news happened: this past Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced his tenth wave of judicial nominees, twelve nominees in all. There’s one circuit-court nominee among them — John Nalbandian, whom I’ll discuss below in my section on the Sixth Circuit — plus eight...

Seventeen of President Trump’s federal court nominees cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, setting them up for floor votes as Republicans look to install as many conservative judges as possible. Eight of the judges were deemed very controversial and were approved on a 11-10 party-line votes, while just two were approved unanimously. Three of the judges were for circuit courts. Democrats raised concerns over several of the nominees over their LGBTQ positions, saying they would not be fair to that community. But Democrats spent the most time protesting Thomas Alvin Farr, who was nominated to be a district judge for...

Judicial and LGBT advocates are slamming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for scheduling a vote on a horde of judicial nominees ahead of a possible government shutdown. The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to vote Thursday on 17 judicial nominees, who were re-nominated by President Trump at the beginning of the month. Under Senate rules, nominees have to be approved by the full Senate in order to carry over into a new session of Congress. But advocates are accusing Grassley of trying to avoid public scrutiny by slipping controversial candidates opposed by Democrats into an already stacked agenda....

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Basic rights and political freedoms in the United States are deteriorating at a faster pace under President Donald Trump, exacerbated by attacks on key institutions like the press and the courts, according to a new report released Tuesday by Freedom House. In its annual global assessment, the think tank slammed the Trump administration for withdrawing from America's "historical commitment to promoting and supporting democracy," calling it perhaps the most striking on a "long list of troubling developments" around the world in 2017. The report criticizes Trump for making false statements, refusing to disclose his taxes and other...

In another striking judicial development, Judge William Alsup, a Clinton appointee from San Francisco, issued an injunctive order Jan. 9 prohibiting President Trump from moving forward rescinding President Obama’s DACA order. Although it only applied to established DACA applicants, and left untouched the ban on future applications, the order is offensive nevertheless, and demonstrates the terrible problem plaguing our country resulting from the actions of activist judges. Essentially, the plaintiffs, which included the State of California, argued that President Trump had acted randomly and capriciously in removing the DACA order because, among other reasons, he did not give notice and...

We are witnessing a treasonous rebellion by leftist judges who are declaring the last election null and void. At the core of these traitors' arguments is the belief that the people do not have the right to express their views through the electoral process. Essentially, these courts are declaring that President Trump doesn't have the same authority as his predecessor and that the powers of the executive branch are constrained by what the judiciary thinks is good policy. These judges assert that President Trump can't overrule the executive orders of his predecessor with his own executive orders. If that were...

There’s been a huge development in the ongoing struggle to protect the Dreamers, the beneficiaries whose immigration status is protected under DACA. U.S. District Judge William Alsup of in San Francisco just issued an injunction blocking the Trump Administration from ending the program as it announced it would do in September.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday launched a review of a little-known but widely used practice of immigration judges closing cases without decisions, potentially reshaping immigration courts and putting hundreds of thousands of people in greater legal limbo. Sessions posed detailed questions challenging the use of "administrative closures," an increasingly common outcome that allows people to stay in the country without legal status. The attorney general invited feedback from advocates and others, after which time he may issue new instructions for immigration judges nationwide. Administrative closures have been a lifeline to immigrants who apply for citizenship, permanent residency or other...