Free Republic

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday affirmed a $5 million arbitration award against MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell in favor of a software engineer who challenged data that Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and tipped the outcome to Joe Biden. Lindell said he plans to appeal. Asked if he can afford to pay, he pointed out that the breach-of-contract lawsuit was against one of his companies, Lindell Management LLC, and not against him personally. “Of course we’re going to appeal it. This guy doesn’t have a dime coming,” Lindell said.

United States District Judge for the District of Idaho, B. Lynn Winmill, has granted a motion for preliminary injunction to block the January 1, 2024 implementation of House Bill 71, which was signed into law following the 2023 Idaho Legislative session. HB71, also called the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, was written by the Idaho Family Policy Center and sponsored by Representative Bruce Skaug. The legislation was written to stop hormone changing drugs, puberty blocking drugs, and sex-change surgeries from being prescribed for minor children in Idaho for the reasons of ‘gender dysphoria’ and transitioning children from their birth sex to...

An Idaho law passed this year that bans gender-affirming care for minors will not go into effect on Jan. 1, as planned. A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction on the lawsuit against the ban. House Bill 71, "The Vulnerable Child Protective Act" was signed into Idaho law in April. It outlaws gender-affirming care for transgender minors; including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. The law finds any doctor that provides gender-transition care guilty of a felony, punishable by up to 10 years of prison time. After the law was signed, a lawsuit was filed against the state on...

A right-wing group specializing in hidden-camera investigations will not be able to use the First Amendment to stop the federal government from accessing documents and communications related to the group’s apparent acquisition of a stolen diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter.As Law&Crime previously reported, the FBI executed a search warrant in 2021 at the property of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, as well as from Project Veritas staffers Spencer Meads and Eric Cochran. The search warrants were granted in connection with the theft and sale of the personal journal belonging to Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. Two people, Aimee...

A self-proclaimed “Christmas Lawyer” faces losing his legal license after he criticized a judge who banned his festive home display, which featured a live camel and 700,000 bulbs, allegedly calling the justice “corrupt” and a “hateful anti-Christian bigot.” Jeremy Morris was informed the Idaho State Bar has “probable cause to proceed with formal charges” against him for accusing federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill of corruption following an ongoing legal battle with the West Hayden Estates Homeowners Association. “The Idaho State Bar has made it clear they’re going to protect their friends, in this case, a federal judge,” Morris told Fox...

A federal judge hearing a challenge to a transgender health care ban for minors and restrictions for adults noted Thursday that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly spread false information about doctors mutilating children's genitals even though there's been no such documented cases. The law was sold as defending children from mutilation when it is actually about preventing trans children from getting health care Hinkle said he will rule sometime in the new year on whether the Legislature, the Department of Health and presidential candidate DeSantis deliberately targeted transgender people through the new law. He raised some skepticism about the...

On the face of it, Friday’s decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ recently enacted ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines doesn’t change circumstances on the ground. The three-judge panel that issued today’s decision had previously stayed U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn’s injunction while the state appealed, so the law has been in effect throughout litigation. Still, the 2-1 decision does matter, both because it provides an opportunity for some or all of the plaintiffs to appeal on an emergency basis to the Supreme Court and because it will...

The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal for lack of standing of an action, brought before the 2022 general election by former Republican nominees for Governor and Secretary of State of Arizona, alleging that Arizona’s use of electronic tabulation systems violated the federal Constitution. The gravamen of Plaintiffs’ operative complaint is that notwithstanding safeguards, electronic tabulation systems are particularly susceptible to hacking by non-governmental actors who intend to influence election results. On appeal, Plaintiffs conceded that their arguments were limited to potential future hacking, and not based on any past harm. The panel held that because Plaintiffs are no longer...

“Long live rescue!” That was the rallying cry of pro-lifers amid tears in response to Tuesday’s verdict against five rescuers. As Live Action News reported, five defendants – Lauren Handy, Herb Geraghty, Heather Idoni, Will Goodman, and John Hinshaw – were found guilty of conspiring to violate civil rights and blocking access to notorious abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s clinic in October of 2020. The case seemed to reflect an attempt by the administration of President Biden, who claims to be a practicing Catholic, to protect abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs. Each defendant faces up to 11 years in...

The measure barred trans women and girls of all ages from participating in female sports teams at public schools in the state, from primary school through college. A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to allow Idaho to enforce a first-in-the-nation ban on transgender women and girls from participating in female sports leagues, saying the measure likely was unconstitutional. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel delivered a victory to LGBTQ rights advocates by upholding an injunction blocking Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, the first of many such laws to be enacted by Republican-led states. “This is an...

U.S. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan says that former President Donald J. Trump may be said to have “raped” E. Jean Carroll, even though a jury specifically declined to find that he had done so in his recent civil trial in New York. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported the judge’s finding — approvingly, calling it a “clarification”: [Kaplan] says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood. The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against...

A Federal Court has blocked the implementation of a controversial Florida law banning children from attending drag shows. The law championed and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis faced a legal challenge from Orlando Restaurant Hamburger Mary’s, which has run 'family friendly' drag shows for 15 years. The law can now no longer be enforced until Hamburger Mary finishes litigating its case, after a Federal judge issued a preliminary injunction.

A federal judge scheduled E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against former President Donald Trump for January 2024, just days before Republican primary voters will begin the presidential nomination process. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan set Carroll’s civil trial against Trump for January 15, 2024, in a brief scheduling order. The scheduling comes days after Kaplan allowed Carroll to amend her second defamation lawsuit against Trump to seek up to $10 million in damages. Last month, a nine-member jury found Trump liable for sexual battery and defaming Carroll and granted her an award of $5 million in damages....

@julie_kelly2 ParaderHunters cheers 5-month jail sentence for woman who pleaded guilty to trespassing count. No criminal history. DOJ wanted 3 months but Clinton judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (80)--who last week told govt it was ok to call a J6 defendant an insurrectionist--gave her 5 months

A federal judge has sided with four publishers who sued an online archive over its unauthorized scanning of millions of copyrighted works and offering them for free to the public... (snip) In June 2020, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House sued in response to the Archive's National Emergency Library, a broad expansion of its ebook lending service begun in the early weeks of the pandemic, when many physical libraries and bookstores had shut down.

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important. Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say. Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge in Wisconsin on Wednesday ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of a man shot and killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during a protest in 2020 can proceed against Rittenhouse, police officers and others. The father of Anthony Huber, one of two men shot and killed by Rittenhouse, filed the lawsuit in 2021, accusing officers of allowing for a dangerous situation that violated his son's constitutional rights and resulted in his death. Anthony Huber's father, John Huber, also alleged that Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, conspired...

In Ference v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, (WD PA, Jan. 18, 2022), a Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge recommended denying a motion to dismiss filed by the Catholic Diocese in a Title VII sex-discrimination lawsuit by a Lutheran 6th-grade teacher in a Catholic school who was fired shortly after being hired when the school discovered that he was in a same-sex marriage. The Diocese had raised defenses based on Title VII's exemption for religious discrimination, the church autonomy doctrine, the ministerial exception and RFRA.

Former State Attorney Andrew Warren will not get his old job in Hillsborough County, as the federal 11th Circuit Court has ruled that it does not oversee or have jurisdiction, over Warren's claim. "Today the court upheld the governor’s decision to suspend Andrew Warren from office for neglect of duty and incompetence," stated Gov. Ron DeSantis Communications Director Taryn Fenske

A federal court ruled the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center broke the law by refusing to remove the uterus of a trans-identified patient due to the religious beliefs of the Institution, which is committed to Catholic principles while also being part of the public medical system. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah K. Chasanow ruled Friday that the hospital violated the Affordable Care Act and discriminated against plaintiff Jesse Hammons, a biological female diagnosed with gender dysphoria, by refusing to conduct a planned hysterectomy (removal of the womb) because it doesn't conduct those procedures to address gender dysphoria. The...