Free Republic

Supreme Court to hear Arizona immigration arguments April 25Reuters – Fri, Feb 3, 2012 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday it will hear arguments on April 25 on the power of states to adopt tough immigration laws, concluding the term's scheduled oral arguments with a major case pitting Arizona against the Obama administration. The high court released on Friday its April calendar, listing immigration and other cases scheduled to be heard in its final argument sitting for the current term, which began in October and ends in late June. At issue is whether federal immigration laws...

Occupy protests at Supreme Court, 12 arrestedBy: Aubrey Whelan | 01/20/12 5:08 PM Examiner Staff Writer Supreme Court Police arrested a dozen Occupy protesters Friday afternoon after they destroyed a police barrier, pushed past a police line and sprinted up the steps of the high court – all in violation of federal law. **SNIP** The protest was organized by the advocacy group Move to Amend, which advocates for a Constitutional amendment that would strike down the Citizens United decision. After a short rally across the street, protesters moved to the Supreme Court building, where police had set up metal barricades....

"Justice Clarence Thomas said in a concurring opinion that he would go beyond the majority’s holding and leave up to the church the definition of who is covered by the exception. Civil courts, he said, should “defer to a religious organization’s good-faith understanding of who qualifies as a minister.” Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan wrote separately to make clear that they do not think the term “minister” is central to courts determining who is covered by the exemption. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists rarely use the title, they wrote. The function performed by the employee is...

Supreme Court sets aside three days for healthcare argumentsBy Sam Baker - 12/19/11 11:40 AM ET The Supreme Court will hear arguments on President Obama's healthcare law over a three-day span in late March. The schedule further confirms the universal expectation that the court will issue a ruling on the healthcare law next June, at the height of the 2012 campaign. The Supreme Court will begin on March 26 with one hour of arguments on whether it can reach a decision on the health law before 2014. There is a possibility that a separate federal law prevents the courts from...

Senators pushing for Supreme Court to televise arguments on Obama’s health care overhaulBy Associated Press, Published: December 6 WASHINGTON — Senators are once again pushing the Supreme Court to televise its courtroom proceedings, especially since justices will have an election-year argument over the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s signature health care overhaul. A Senate Judiciary subcommittee debated Tuesday whether Congress should or — even could — force the Supreme Court, a co-equal branch of government, to allow cameras to broadcast live during arguments.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s idea for checking judicial activism is a textbook case of historical revisionism that is strikingly similar to the court-packing scheme of liberal icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Gingrich said Congress should just pass a law eliminating specific judgeships, presumably immediately ousting the activist judges currently filling those seats. Gingrich lionizes an incident now regarded as profoundly troubling by constitutional scholars. When Thomas Jefferson replaced John Adams as president in 1801, the outgoing Congress created new federal courts and judgeships which Adams promptly filled. The new Congress repealed the law and the judges were ousted. Jefferson considered...

As the deficit supercommittee continued to flail away Monday with its deadline fast approaching, the Supreme Court took up the constitutionality of the 2010 health law's insurance mandate. The stories dominated national news, but the coverage left out a critical detail: the timing was far from coincidental. Indeed, it seems likely that the parties will have to come to terms over the fate of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) before they'll be able to reach a grand deficit bargain.

This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of Clarence Thomas’s swearing in on the United States Supreme Court. National Review Online asked some experts, including some former clerks for Thomas, to discuss his record. STEVEN CALABRESI Justice Thomas has had a huge impact on American law during his 20 years on the U.S. Supreme Court. He writes beautiful and well-researched opinions brimming with historical information. Justice Thomas is a consistent originalist who always follows the text of the Constitution wherever it leads. His opinions combine the textualism of Justice Hugo Black with a thorough discussion of the original meaning of the...

Court Case Asks if ‘Big Brother’ Is Spelled GPSBy ADAM LIPTAK Published: September 10, 2011 WASHINGTON — The precedent is novel. More precisely, the precedent is a novel. In a series of rulings on the use of satellites and cellphones to track criminal suspects, judges around the country have been citing George Orwell’s “1984” to sound an alarm. They say the Fourth Amendment’s promise of protection from government invasion of privacy is in danger of being replaced by the futuristic surveillance state Orwell described. **SNIP** Last month, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn turned down...

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced late Wednesday she has filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to consider her state’s appeal to a lower court ruling that put on hold key parts of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61010.html#ixzz1UfUhGesM

"This man who was raised by leftists in a disfunctional family, despising every principle upon which this great nation was founded is like a culmination of all our national sins, embodied in one very real individual. He has a plan for America and it makes fictional screenplays like The Manchurian Candidate read like Disney." (continued)

Obama, Bachmann Differ on Whether He has Supreme Court Powerby Elena Isella | June 29, 2011 Is President Obama also a Supreme Court justice? Does he wear a black robe in the West Wing? Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., thinks so. An unofficial dispute broke out Wednesday between President Obama and the GOP presidential candidate. Stumping in Charleston, South Carolina, Bachmann passionately spoke of defending the constitution saying it's a ‘magnificent political document.' She then quickly pointed out that Obama would not uphold the law of the land as it pertains to the Defense of Marriage Act. The administration stopped defending...

The Supreme Court has backed an Arizona law that would punish businesses hiring illegal immigrants. (VIDEO)

A 5-4 liberal majority orders the release of tens of thousands of prisoners.

Indiana’s highest court has turned against our rights and the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court of Indiana has just decided that the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not apply to the citizens of Indiana. The court has decided that Hoosiers have no right to be safe in their own homes from illegal entry, search, and seizure by police. Indiana’s highest court has just said that Hoosier stormtroopers can invade any home at ay time and citizens have no right to resist because it is “against public policy.” Blogger Bruce McQuain said this appalling incident in...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit challenging Arizona's tax breaks for voluntary donations benefiting private school scholarships, many of them Christian-based. The 13-year-old program provides dollar-for-dollar income tax credits for money given to "school tuition organizations," or STOs. The 5-4 ruling split along conservative-liberal lines. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said taxpayers challenging the program lacked "standing" to continue the suit.

Supreme Court will take up Virginia's health-care petition April 15By Jim Nolan Published: March 25, 2011 On April 15, the U.S. Supreme Court will discuss Virginia's petition to have its lawsuit against the federal health-care law bypass appellate court review and be heard directly by the high court. The Supreme Court put the matter on its calendar. There is no timetable for the court to decide on Virginia's petition, however. The case, Commonwealth of Virginia v. Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama's secretary of health and human resources, currently is scheduled to be heard May 10 in the 4th U.S. Circuit...

Plan to split Florida Supreme Court clears a committeeBy Steve Bousquet, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau In Print: Friday, March 18, 2011 TALLAHASSEE — House Speaker Dean Cannon's bold plan to overhaul the Florida Supreme Court gathered steam Thursday, as a Republican-controlled House committee endorsed the proposed changes and Democrats opposed them, as did the Florida Bar and some judges. Cannon wants to break the seven-member Supreme Court into two separate five-member tribunals, one to handle only civil cases and the other to hear only criminal cases, similar to systems in Texas and Oklahoma. That would give Gov. Rick Scott three appointments...

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court on Monday night it should stay away from a high-profile challenge to the 2010 health care law until after a lower court has had a chance to review the case. (Snip) In his filing last month, Cuccinelli said there's a "palpable consensus" that the high court will ultimately have to pass judgment on the merits of President Obama's health care law and should do so without delay. Furthermore, Cuccinelli argues that his case involves "pure issues of constitutional law" that appellate judges on the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will be unable

Dems: Thomas should recuse himselfBy JENNIFER HABERKORN | 2/9/11 11:27 AM EST Seventy-four House Democrats are asking Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from any health care reform cases, citing reports that his wife financially benefited from efforts to repeal the legislation. The members, led by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), ask that he “maintain the integrity of this court.” **SNIP** The move comes after Republicans have floated similar concerns about the impartiality of Justice Elena Kagan, who was solicitor general during the health debate.

Civil Rights Leaders Urged to Denounce Leftist Calls for Violence Against Black Supreme Court JusticeFor Release: February 7, 2011 Washington, D.C. – Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli is urging liberal civil right leaders to denounce violent, racist rhetoric against black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with the same vigor with which they sought out alleged racial extremism within the tea party movement. "The NAACP, Al Sharpton, Marc Morial of the National Urban League and others command national attention whenever they allege racism in the tea party movement, but they've so far ignored the revolting comments caught on video in which...

(CNSNews.com) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said on Thursday evening that she will not retire from the court before 2012 and hinted that she might serve until she's at least 83 years old in 2016. VIDEO 1:57 minutes Ginsburg was interviewed by NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The topic of the discussion was Ginsburg's life before and after becoming a Supreme Court justice.“I am constantly asked, ‘Is Justice Ginsburg going to retire soon?’" Totenberg asked. "So, I will ask you that. Do you have any plans for your retirement?”Ginsburg, who...

Washington —For most of the last two decades, Supreme Court conservatives led by Justice Antonin Scalia dominated the debates during oral arguments. They greeted advocates for liberal causes with sharp and sometimes caustic questions, putting them on the defensive from the opening minute.But the tenor of the debate has changed in recent months, now that President Obama's two appointees to the court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, have joined the fray and reenergized the liberal wing.Gone are the mismatches where the Scalia wing overshadowed reserved and soft-spoken liberals like now-retired

Link only - U.S. Supreme Court rejects health care reform case

Consumers' right to file class actions is in dangerIf AT&T has its way before the Supreme Court, any business that issues a contract to customers would be able to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits, taking away arguably the most powerful legal tool available to the little guy. By David Lazarus November 5, 2010 It hasn't gotten a lot of press, but a case involving AT&T that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next week has sweeping ramifications for potentially millions of consumers. If a majority of the nine justices vote the telecom giant's way, any business that issues a...

With Democrats increasingly outraged over the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision that allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections — a change conservatives have been more successful at taking advantage of — a Democratic congressman is raising the prospect of impeaching the Supreme Court’s chief justice over the issue. "I mean, the Supreme Court has done a tremendous disservice to the United States of America," Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. "They have done more to undermine our democracy with their Citizens United decision than all of the Republican operatives in the world in this campaign. They’ve...

I am the chief engineer for flight mechanics at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA center operated under federal government contract by the California Institute of Technology. My responsibilities include technical oversight and review of all aspects of spacecraft dynamics, trajectory design, mission design and navigation for all missions at JPL from the earliest studies to the completion of flight operations. I also serve on several review boards for other NASA missions outside of JPL. But today, I will be at the Supreme Court listening to my lawyer argue against the acting solicitor general of the United States. I began...

You seem . . . to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is "boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem, '' and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has...

Vote on the condition of the Supremem Court. The libs are winning this one. Please vote on this and close the gap. It's pretty much self explanatory.

The president's agenda on healthcare and financial regulations sets the stage for a clash with the Supreme Court's conservative majority. Reporting from Washington — The Supreme Court wrapped up its term last week after landmark decisions protecting the right to have a gun and the right of corporations to spend freely on elections. But the year's most important moment may have come on the January evening when the justices gathered at the Capitol for President Obama's State of the Union address. They had no warning about what was coming.

A university can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that bars gays and nonbelievers, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a case that pitted anti-discrimination principles against religious freedom. Such official recognition qualifies campus groups for funding and other benefits. By a 5-4 vote, the justices upheld a U.S. appeals court ruling in favor of the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. It denied recognition to the group because of a school policy that membership should be open to all. The high court's ruling was a defeat for the Christian Legal Society. It argued...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - O.J. Simpson's lawyer told a panel of Nevada Supreme Court justices Friday that the former football star's conviction in a gunpoint hotel room heist amounted to prejudicial "payback" for Simpson's 1994 double-murder acquittal. "This was not a search for truth but became a search for redemption," attorney Yale Galanter said as he pleaded for the court panel to overturn Simpson's conviction and grant a new trial in the September 2007 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas. Questions from Justices Mark Gibbons, Michael Cherry and Nancy Saitta focused on the racial makeup of the...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast.

American conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan wrote a column titled 'Are liberals anti-WASP' last week, in which he suggested that if Supreme Court justice nominee Elena Kagan is confirmed, there will be a disproportionately large number of Jews on the Supreme Court bench. In his column for World Net Daily, Buchanan lamented the fact that since 1965, no Democratic president has nominated a black Supreme Court justice, but that "if Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats."

ABC Features Sotomayor's Brother to Tout Salsa-loving JudgeBy Scott Whitlock Wed, 06/10/2009 - 12:17 ET "Good Morning America's" Claire Shipman on Wednesday conducted a fawning, mostly content-free interview with Supreme Court pick Sonia Sotomayor's brother about his sister's love for Salsa dancing, among other light topics. The ABC reporter asked Juan Sotomayor only one question on the substance of the nominee's comments that a "wise Latina" judge would come to a better conclusion than a white man.

Democrats should be our first line of protection against putting a untested candidate on the Supreme court. You'd think one Democrat would wise up and point out a whole stable of qualified Judges who are ready for the job. Then, point out to those who still would take no experience that this decision may well effect their party for 50 years. And this is the Supreme Court, not some entry level job. They have no idea if this candidate really wants to be a Judge, or gets tired of the jobs and quits. At least with Sotomayer, they could argue...

Kagan Sought to Shield Supreme Court, Police from Racial Arguments in Clinton Era While serving as an associate counsel to President Clinton, Elena Kagan expressed concern about a plan to use the Supreme Court to demonstrate the president's commitment to racial diversity, declassified documents show. While serving as an associate counsel to President Clinton, Elena Kagan expressed concern about a plan to use the Supreme Court to demonstrate the president's commitment to racial diversity, declassified documents show.

On Monday, Barack Obama officially nominated Elena Kagan to become the nation’s newest Supreme Court justice. Kagan would replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. The confirmation hearings for Kagan are likely to being sometime this summer. Supposedly not much is known about Kagan’s viewpoints on various issues. That is because she has never served a single day as a judge, but somehow Obama felt that she was qualified for a lifetime position amongst the highest-ranking judges in the country.

Elena Kagan, the President’s pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, is an affable and intelligent Trojan horse. Obama’s high court nominee has been groomed for years, standing ready for the judicial mission of advancing the secular-progressive agenda, if confirmed, for decades to come. Conservatives can (and must!) build a coalition to defeat Kagan’s nomination.

What do I think about The False Prophet’s latest Supreme Court nominee? Brevity isn’t my greatest attribute but in this case I can make it short and sweet. The second I saw the photo, despite knowing nothing of the nominee, my first thought was that Obama sought out the most militant lesbian he could find, just to make certain that he stoked as much outrage and controversy as possible. He's the ultimate suicide terrorist, flying this plane with a one way ticket. As with the 9/11 hi-jackers, he has no concern for how to land it.

A founding member of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race, and Politics, Guy-Uriel Charles, posted a blog in which he tears into Elena Kagan's hiring record as head of Harvard Law School. He states that of the 29 positions Kagan had a chance to fill, 28 were white and one was Asian-American. He elaborates by stating that only six were women - five white and one Asian-American. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that the person with this atrocious hiring record were a white man and the President were a white man. Do you think the liberal lefties...

President Barack Obama was preparing to announce his choice for the Supreme Court as early as Monday, with Solicitor General Elena Kagan continuing to be viewed as the front-runner.*** "I think the decision will be announced very shortly," Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." He said the president has a "wealth of good candidates to consider" [effusive praise deleted] White House aides have said the president wants not just a top legal mind but also someone who can work across ideological lines and be a leader on the court in building majorities. Kagan backers point...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding. The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge's determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group's funding.

*** But his opinion in Kelo v New London (2005) was simply terrible. The case was about a private developer in New London, Connecticut, who wanted to raze some waterfront homes to build an office block and some posh apartments. The owners didn't want to sell. The city decided to force them to, calculating that the new development would create jobs and yield more taxes. The city decided to use the power of "eminent domain". Under the 5th amendment, the government may seize private property only in exceptional circumstances. The land seized must be put to “public use”, and “just...

<p>WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, he is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.</p> <p>Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July. He said he hopes his successor is confirmed "well in advance of the commencement of the court's next term."</p>

Per Foxnews Alert

Everyone is wondering: Where did that erroneous rumor of an imminent retirement by Chief Justice John Roberts come from? The gossip spread like wildfire, triggering thousands of texts, blog posts, and emails — a few hundred of them to the ATL tips line — before Radar, which first published the rumor, retracted its report. We were skeptical, which is one reason why we didn’t write about the gossip as quickly as some other outlets. We reached out to the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office after we heard the rumor, and we didn’t want to write about it until we heard...

In recent decades there have been many proposals for amending the Constitution in an attempt to overturn federal and Supreme Court decisions. All of these efforts have failed to gain the necessary support. Moreover, the amendment process is not the proper route to correct a problem with perceived judicial abuse of interpretation when the Constitution itself is not at fault. However, a much more effective, but little know process is immediately at hand. We are referring to the clause found in Article III, Section 2, providentially written as follows: “...the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to law...

There was the president, and there were six members of the Supreme Court. The few words from the one to the others went by quickly. The president’s tone was mild compared to the animation in some other parts of the speech, and I thought he looked momentarily awkward. But maybe I was just projecting. Mr. Obama’s words were sharp, echoing his earlier criticism of the court’s decision last week in the Citizens United case to strike down the limits that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law placed on independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. The decision would “open the floodgates...

THE FIVE THAT STAND AGAINST ALL AMERICANS, THE “MAFIA� JUDGES By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Five members of the Supreme Court declared that a “corporation� is a person, not a “regular person� but one above all natural laws, subject to no God, no moral code but one with unlimited power over our lives, a power awarded by judges who seem themselves as grand inquisitors in an meant to hunt down all hertics who fail to serve their god, the god of money. Their ruling has made it legal for foreign controlled corporations to flush unlimited money into our bloated...