Free Republic

The Supreme Court released opinions on Tuesday in two cases argued earlier this term, rendering favorable rulings for a veteran plaintiff seeking educational benefits and a Texas landowner in a takings dispute. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the first opinion of the day, a 7-2 decision that sided with veteran James Rudisill in his effort to take advantage of education benefits available under the Montgomery GI Bill and the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Rudisill served in the Army on three separate occasions between 2000 and 2011. The majority decision in Rudisill v. McDonough reversed a U.S. Court of Appeals for the...

ech companies and commenters at public hearings got diametrically opposed rulings last week in First Amendment challenges to the discretion of governments to police, restrain and chill speech. U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter issued a preliminary injunction against New York's "hateful conduct" law, passed in the aftermath of the livestreamed Buffalo mass shooting to punish broadly defined "social media network[s]" for letting such content spread. It compels networks to "speak about the contours of hate speech" and chills their users' protected speech "without articulating a compelling governmental interest or ensuring that the law is narrowly tailored to that goal," Carter...

Democratic candidates have decried North Carolina’s newly reinstated abortion restrictions after a federal judge allowed a state law banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to go into effect. But some North Carolina Democrats say the ruling earlier this month — the latest fallout of the June U.S. Supreme Court decision eliminating federal abortion protections — might be the catalyst their party needed to reinvigorate its political prospects in what was shaping up to be a losing year.

His commission’s work vindicated hours earlier by judges of the state’s highest court on both sides of the aisle, University of Pittsburgh chancellor emeritus Mark Nordenberg said Wednesday evening that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to uphold the newly drawn state legislative maps — the work of his reapportionment commission — made for a “very satisfying moment.” In an exclusive interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Nordenberg, chair of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission, said after an “intense and grueling process” that included 10 months of work and a touch of partisan fury over the results, he hopes his commission’s...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said she wants Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s replacement to be someone “who will consider the impact, the effects of whatever decision-making is on people in our country so that they are not making decisions just based on” the law.

The Labor Department said on Saturday that it would delay until Feb. 9 the deadline for full enforcement of its rule requiring large companies to have their workers get coronavirus vaccines or be tested weekly, after weeks of legal battles created uncertainty and confusion for employers. The department’s move came a day after a federal appeals panel reinstated the Biden administration's rule requiring that companies with at least 100 employees mandate their workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face weekly testing by Jan. 4. The rule had also mandated that those employers require masks for unvaccinated workers by Dec....

(CNN)Former President Donald Trump's attempt to withhold records from the House of Representatives related to the January 6 US Capitol attack based on executive privilege -- a claim rejected by President Joe Biden -- would present the US Supreme Court with a novel legal dilemma. But past decisions involving assertions of executive privilege to keep documents confidential suggest Trump has a weak case, even if heard by this increasingly conservative high court, with three Trump appointees on the nine-member bench. "The privilege is not for the benefit of the President as an individual, but for the benefit of the Republic,"...

I have previously criticized Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., for his almost unrivaled advocacy of censorship and speech controls. Blumenthal previously threatened social media companies not to “backslide” in censoring opposing views. Now, Blumenthal is taking up the cudgel of court packing with not so subtle threats to conservative justices that, if they do not vote with their liberal colleagues, the Court may be fundamentally altered. He is not alone in such reckless and coercive rhetoric. Blumenthal told The Hill: “It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles....

Four years ago, I wrote about my decision to live as a woman in The New York Times, writing that I had wanted to live “authentically as the woman that I have always been,” and had “effectively traded my white male privilege to become one of America’s most hated minorities.” Three years ago, I decided that I was neither male nor female, but nonbinary—and made headlines after an Oregon judge agreed to let me identify as a third sex, not male or female. Now, I want to live again as the man that I am. I’m one of the lucky...

The Trump administration is applying new regulations to protect endangered species, rolling back some requirements [in order] to ground the policy in scientific and economic factors, the Interior Department announced Monday. The regulations, based on the 1973 Endangered Species Act, will “increase transparency and effectiveness and bring the administration of the Act into the 21st century,” the agency said. The rules won’t extend the same protections to threatened species as are applied to those already on the endangered list. Nor will they look as far into the future to project what species face extinction. The changes likely will draw litigation...

Americans today are inclined to accept, without thinking much about it, the idea of judicial supremacy. We think that the federal courts—and especially the Supreme Court—have an extensive discretion to decide for us the big questions of public policy that come before the nation. After all, the Supreme Court has taken upon itself the authority to decide whether and to what extent abortion may be regulated, and, more recently, to decide the definition of marriage. Moreover, we think that that court’s decisions on such questions are final, that there is no way the people or their representatives can effectively assert...

President Donald Trump announced on Monday night his nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, who was included in The Heritage FoundationÂ’s original list of potential Supreme Court nominees, is a very promising choice.The battle lines were already drawn before Trump made his announcement, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declaring he would not vote for any of the individuals on TrumpÂ’s short list.Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised the confirmation vote would happen this fall. Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin the process of reviewing...

What is Justice Elena Kagan doing? So far this term, the liberal justice has crossed ideological lines at least three times to join the Supreme Court’s conservatives. Most recently, on Thursday, Kagan authored the majority opinion in Lucia v. SEC, a huge case that threatens to erode the political independence of multiple federal agencies. Tearing down the “administrative state” is supposed to be Justice Neil Gorsuch’s pet project. In Lucia, though, it was Kagan who took the lead in undermining the civil service, authoring an opinion that prompted a sharp dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who accused her colleague of...

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” reacted to the 9th Circuit Court ruling upholding the blocking of President Trump‘s executive order halting immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States senior advisor to President Donald Trump Stephen Miller said, there was no such thing as “judicial supremacy.” Partial transcript as follows: TODD: Let me start with the decision by the 9th circuit and the president himself saying to reporters that a new order may be drafted. Is that what you and others are doing right now? Drafting a new order since essentially the 9th circuit seemed to give...

On summer nights in the mid-1960s, while black-and-white television crackled elsewhere in his Staten Island home with news of Southern violence and Vietnam, Bobby Lasnik would stretch out in his bedroom to let the righteous soundtrack of the civil rights movement waft into his impressionable teenage soul. Tuned in to WBAI-FM, coming across the water from Manhattan, he heard baleful laments about injustice that he would carry with him for a lifetime. FOR THE RECORD: Bob Dylan lyrics: In the May 9 Section A, an article about the use of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's lyrics in legal opinions and briefs quoted...

The Obama administration's pay czar, Ken Feinberg, will release new rulings Friday morning on the pay packages for some of the highest-paid employees at six companies receiving what the administration deems "exceptional assistance" from the government. Share Not much has changed in terms of pay since the banking meltdown. The rulings will cover 2009 compensation for the 26th to 100th highest-paid employees at six companies: AIG, Citigroup, GM, Chrysler, and the automakers' respective financing arms -- GMAC and Chrysler Financial. Feinberg will impose a $500,000 salary cap on these employees unless "good cause" can be proven, a source familiar with...

TERRE HAUTE — A news conference has been called for 4 p.m. today in the mayor's office in city hall, following an Indiana Court of Appeals ruling this morning in favor of former Terre Haute Mayor Kevin Burke who had challenged Republican Duke Bennett's eligibility in the 2007 election. The court by a 2-to-1 decision stated that Bennett was ineligible to take office and that Burke is not entitled to fill that post as a result of the ruling, because voters were unaware of Bennett's ineligibility. Thus, the votes cannot be counted and the court ruled the office vacant. As...

Systematically Gutting the Constitution While Reshaping America in their ImageAbout this time every year, 300 million-plus Americans drag themselves out of bed, get ready for their day and learn what rights they have been allowed under the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision. The unelected Supremes, in their hair-splitting wisdom, have ruled this term: * That elected representatives of the people may make no law to execute child rapists; * That enemy combatants--captured on the field of battle as they attempted to kill U.S. service personnel--have many of the same rights as law-abiding U.S. citizens; * That the Second Amendment is...

WASHINGTON - Thousands of pages of newly released documents from John Roberts' first government job show a highly intelligent, politically savvy young man, wrestling with charged legal and political issues on behalf of the deeply conservative Reagan administration. As a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith in 1981 and 1982, Roberts advocated positions and drafted memos on issues from judicial restraint to voting rights to affirmative action, which were as controversial then as they are now that Roberts is no longer a twenty-something aide but a nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court. Roberts generally took strongly...

Senate Democrats are preparing to play to the cameras once more while raking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts over the coals, but the fight may not be as fierce as some Liberals want. There's bound to be some huffing and puffing during the confirmation hearings, as many of the radical groups controlling the Democrats demand they fight a battle that cannot be won. Though Democrats will probably use the "we need more documents" dodge to avoid an outright filibuster, Roberts will surely be confirmed in the end. One almost has to feel sorry for the Democrats, pushed into this fight...