Free Republic

In the weeks before the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Obamacare, the country trembled with anticipation. No such eagerness is evident now -- yet the court is again poised to rattle our world. The case of Fisher v. Texas could upend the system of racial preferences in use throughout American higher education. The pursuit of racial justice in education has arguably led to some benefits since its inception in the 1960s. But in the two generations that have elapsed since affirmative action began, evidence of its unintended consequences has accumulated -- even as a society-wide taboo has forbidden...

(Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona state law that requires people registering to vote in federal elections to show proof of citizenship. In a 7-2 vote, the court said the voter registration provision of the 2004 state law, known as Proposition 200, was trumped by a federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. The federal law requires prospective voters to provide one of several possible forms of identification, such as a driver's license or a passport, but no proof of citizenship is needed. Would-be voters simply sign a statement saying they are citizens. In...

Painted as radicals and racists by some, this organization of law enforcement officers and military vets says its only purpose is to uphold the Constitution. It started with Katrina. The sight of U.S. military troops, law enforcement officers, and armed government contractors seizing firearms from citizens in the aftermath of that terrible storm shocked the conscience of Yale constitutional law scholar Stewart Rhodes. That these actions were later recognized as wrong by the U.S. Supreme Court did little to assuage Rhodes' concerns. The fact remained that an illegal precedent had taken place, and could well occur again; indeed, it appeared...

MADISON – After two long years of legal limbo, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to take up the constitutionality of the state’s controversial Act 10, the law led by Gov. Scott Walker that gutted collective bargaining for most Badger State public employees. One constitutional expert who has urged the court to settle the confusion surrounding the case, said a definitive ruling would “put an end to our long nightmare.” The case of Madison Teachers Inc. v. Scott Walker is one of four high profile cases the high court has decided to review. In its certification to the Supreme Court,...

Did you see yesterday’s unanimous Supreme Court decision on Myriad Genetics patent on genes?  The Supremes said you can’t patent something that you didn’t invent. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the decision for a unanimous court. "Myriad did not create anything," Thomas said. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention." In essence the court found that Myriad Genetics didn’t build their genes on their own. Somebody else did that for them.   So that’s good news; being able to keep your genes I...

Megan McCardle, writing in The Daily Beast, wrote today in an article entitled 'No, Democrats Did Not Just Want to "Count All the Votes" in the 2000 Election': 'Ironically, I suspect that if Gore had simply unilaterally requested a statewide manual recount, or the Florida Supreme Court had forced one upon him, the United States Supreme Court would have probably stayed out of it. But they didn’t, and as they say, the rest is history.' And, it still wouldn’t have made any difference. For all of the rending of garments by Al Gore and the rest of the Left and...

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that human genes isolated from the body can’t be patented, a victory for doctors and patients who argued that such patents interfere with scientific research and the practice of medicine. The court was handing down one of its most significant rulings in the age of molecular medicine, deciding who may own the fundamental building blocks of life. The case involved Myriad Genetics Inc., which holds patents related to two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, that can indicate whether a woman has a heightened risk of developing breast cancer or ovarian cancer. Justice Clarence...

(snip) Holder responded, “With all due respect, Senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue. I’d be more than glad to come back in a — in an appropriate setting to discuss the issues that you have raised." Kirk, a Naval intelligence officer, pressed Holder remarking, “I would interrupt you and say the correct answer would be say no, we stayed within our lane, and I’m assuring you we did not spy on members of Congress.” Holder remained defiant saying, “And I would be more than glad, as I said, in an appropriate...

Two women are tied for the title of Most Beautiful Woman in America. Veritable goddesses, they show no trace of vanity. Their beauty is a gift to America and they deserve our attention. Unlike Victoria’s Secret Angels, these two women are ageless; their attractiveness becomes more apparent with time. They echo the strength and grace of Michelangelo’s David statue. Their gazes are determined looks of confidence; the veins in their muscular arms protrude; their stances are those of female warriors. Lately, our country’s leaders seem to have forgotten about liberty, truth, beauty, and justice. EPA planes have been snooping on...

As Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. was struggling with how to cast the decisive vote in a 1986 Supreme Court case that would end up devastating the gay rights movement, he told his fellow justices that he had never met a homosexual. In truth, one of his four law clerks that term was gay. The atmosphere at the court today is far different from 1986, with a pace of change that may have surpassed that in the rest of society. Openly gay law clerks are now common in the chambers of both liberal and conservative justices. In January, Chief Justice...

Antonin Scalia may be the Supreme Court justice whom progressives most love to hate. Daily Kos blogger Sylvia Moore says he is "clearly an authoritarian." A California Lawyer reader complains online that Scalia "actively promotes an authoritarian agenda in which the rights of the individual have little meaning." Even legal writer Joan Biskupic, in her relatively respectful and sympathetic biography of Scalia, refers to his "authoritarian bent" and "authoritarian instinct." The latest refutation of this caricature is Maryland v. King, a decision issued Monday in which the Supreme Court upheld DNA testing of arrestees. Scalia's dissent illustrates how his respect...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting.

<p>The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to the campaign of abortion opponents to “defund” Planned Parenthood.</p> <p>Without comment, the justices turned away Indiana’s defense of a 2011 law that would ban all Medicaid funds to an organization such as Planned Parenthood whose work includes performing abortions.</p>

The decision to keep the bureaucrat who headed up Tea Party targeting in charge of Obamacare speaks to a bald affront by the Obama administration to a US Congress now facing some very tough questions of its own. Sarah Hall Ingram scored not a lateral but an up the chain promotion when she was put in charge of a reform division of the Affordable Care Act. But just what are the political ramifications of the 18 month long period in which the painful targeting of conservatives successfully squelched Tea Party opposition to her big boss’s re-election? The Tea Party targeting...

The U.S. Supreme Court just announced it will hear in October 2013 the case Galloway v. Greece, concerning freedom of speech and legislative prayer. In 2008 two Greece residents, Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, filed suit against the town alleging that the town’s habit of having explicitly Christian prayers delivered prior to board meetings flouted the First Amendment. In August 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Siragusa disagreed, ruling that prayers in Jesus’ name were not a violation of the U.S. Constitution. But a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in May 2012 overturned Siragusa’s decision...

<p>The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that farmers may not use Monsanto’s patented genetically altered soybeans to create new seeds without paying the company a fee.</p> <p>The ruling has implications for many aspects of modern agriculture and for businesses based on vaccines, cell lines and software. But Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, emphasized that the justices meant for the decision to be narrow.</p>

“It is plainly true that in our society blacks have suffered discrimination immeasurably greater than any directed at other racial groups.” These were the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, written in his concurring opinion in the 1989 Supreme Court case Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. The city of Richmond, Va., was sued over its policy of requiring that a certain percentage of city contracts be set aside for minority-owned businesses. Do these words written by Justice Scalia in the Croson case sound racist? Obviously, they are not. Yet, somehow Justice Scalia has been deemed a racist for... Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/3/a-slur-against-scalia/#disqus_thread#ixzz2SEcZLdox...

In an interview with Bloomberg TV from the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, former Vice President Al Gore claims American democracy has been "hacked." Gore also opined on former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently commenting that she regretted her decision in Bush v. Gore.

Media Bias: When Sandra Day O'Connor said she regretted her decision in Bush v. Gore, the press threw another fit about the "stolen" election. They seem to forget their own studies proved the court's ruling didn't matter. [snip] After that election, USA Today, the New York Times and every other major news organization spent months manually recounting Florida ballots in hopes of proving that the court did, in fact, hand victory to Bush. And what did these recounts find?

In an interview with AlterNet this past week, America’s most well-known left-wing intellectual slammed President Obama for his inexplicable “attacks” on civil liberties in the forms of various laws expanding upon the executive powers set forth by President George W. Bush. Speaking with the liberal blog’s Mike Stivers, Chomsky expressed dissatisfaction with the current president’s record on civil liberties: “I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I...

A judge has made an important decision in a sexual assault case that is not only the correct one, but one that hopefully others will follow. The decision was not on the guilt or innocence of the men charged, but on the complainant’s desire to wear a niqab while testifying. The woman, known only as N.S., had taken her fight all the way to the Supreme Court, which chose not to choose. The Supreme Court ruled that it was up to each individual judge to determine on a case-by-case basis if the wearing of the religious cloth – essentially the...

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to human-rights advocates Wednesday, in a case that was closely watched globally by human-rights groups and foreign governments. The court limited the reach of a 224-year-old federal law that in recent decades has been used to hold foreign corporations and individuals accountable in U.S. courts for human-rights abuses abroad. shut down a lawsuit brought by Nigerian citizens now living in the United States who sued Royal Dutch Petroleum, an Anglo-Dutch company, for allegedly aiding Nigerian forces in a violent crackdown in their country. Although the justices unanimously agreed the lawsuit could not go...

In their haste to impose an historic affront to individual liberty, the authors of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) neglected to provide the federal bureaucracy with either the funding necessary to build ObamaCare exchanges within the various states OR the authority to award tax credits or impose penalties on the American public. For when the ACA was written it was foolishly believed by lawmakers that each of the 50 states would immediately take on the near 100 million dollar responsibility of completing an ObamaCare exchange within its borders—an exchange being the sales center without which no ObamaCare business may be...

In its March 28 issue, The New Yorker published an article titled “Bitter Scalia Leaves U.S.,” by Andy Borowitz in his Borowitz Report. The article presents Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s supposed decision to resign from the Court and leave the United States. It also quotes Scalia as saying that this past week of hearings concerning same-sex marriage had been “by far the worst week of my life.” The article went on to include contrived quotes about his considered choices of new national citizenship and described his supposed angry outburst at his fellow Justices upon his dramatic exit. The article...

(Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to weigh a federal government rule that requires airlines to advertise the full cost of tickets.

“Obamacare” looks increasingly inevitable, but one lawsuit making its way through the court system could pull the plug on the sweeping federal health care law. A challenge filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation contends that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House. Under the Origination Clause of the Constitution, all bills raising revenue must begin in the House. The Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the act in June, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took pains in the majority opinion to define Obamacare as a federal tax, not a...

Has the nation lived down its history of racism and should the law become colorblind? Addressing two pivotal legal issues, one on affirmative action and a second on voting rights, a divided Supreme Court is poised to answer those questions. In one case, the issue is whether race preferences in university admissions undermine equal opportunity more than they promote the benefits of racial diversity. Just this past week, justices signaled their interest in scrutinizing affirmative action very intensely, expanding their review as well to a Michigan law passed by voters that bars ‘‘preferential treatment’’ to students based on race. Separately...

Same-sex marriage is probably inevitable in America whatever the Supreme Court decides. That's because the public is clearly leaning that way. That the court is even being asked to impose a sweeping social change on the nation is illustrative of another lost battle -- the idea that the Supreme Court is not a super-legislature and that nine robed lawyers ought to refrain from imposing their policy preferences on the whole nation. Even two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, have from time to time expressed caution about the Court imposing its will on matters better left up to...

I would like to think that Supreme Court justices are smarter than I am. At one level, they surely are. Their years of devotion to the practice and analysis of law involves countless pages of book-learning I will never undertake. Their brains must fairly bulge with minutiae I cannot grasp. But there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom. There are high school dropouts who have deep wells of astuteness about how to think, act and live in an enlightened way. And there are Ph.D.’s I would not let into my house. In one stunning moment Tuesday from the Supreme...

A political legislature known as the U.S. Supreme Court held a purely-legislative hearing about homosexual marriage on March 26. The hearing debated raw policy preferences and speculated about benefits for and against homosexual marriage. To anyone trained in the law, it violated almost every law and rule of the U.S. Supreme Court. Only a lawyer willing to 'tell' on his profession can reveal how disturbing was the High Court's oral argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry. The case concerns the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 referendum defining marriage as the joining of a man and a woman. Generally liberal California voted...

Few things were certain after the Supreme Court's first foray into the issue of gay marriage earlier this week—except that conservative-leaning swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy will control the outcome. The four liberal and the four conservative justices appeared to split right down the middle on how (and whether) to decide the constitutionality of both Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Kennedy—who in the past authored the court's two most important opinions affirming gay rights—seemed to be on the fence in both cases.

You can’t win the fight if you don’t put on the gloves. A punch-drunk, old heavyweight boxer knows that’s a truism, but not the churches of America. The Supreme Court heard arguments this week on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state by a 52 to 47 margin in 2008 but has since been declared unconstitutional by federal courts. Fox TV, Rush Limbaugh and other talk-show pundits have weighed in, arguing the conservative -- and moral -- position that sanctifying gay marriage with the grace of the U.S. Constitution is not only wrong but...

The old adage that one lie leads to another is never more apparent than when modern American public officials deal with issues arising from sexual immorality. President Bill Clinton, for example, started a chain of lies when he decided to have an adulterous relationship with a White House intern. Clinton first lied to his wife, then to a federal court, then to the American people. Nor could Clinton's lies, delivered as president, be his lies alone. His partisans in Congress either had to abandon him or add another link to the chain of lies by declaring that perjury and...

A rare instance in which the left is decidedly pro-federalism. The word from Reuters and SCOTUSblog: U.S. Supreme Court justices signal interest in striking down #DOMA as violating states’ rights #breaking— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 27, 2013 Final update: #scotus 80% likely to strike down #doma. J Kennedy suggests it violates states’ rights; 4 other Justices see as gay rights.— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 27, 2013 A bit more detail from the WSJ liveblog: Justice Kennedy, however, jumped in with federalism concerns, questioning whether the federal government was intruding on the states’ territory. With there being so many different federal...

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was questioning former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, a pro-gay marriage Republican. She brought up a very interesting question during the exchange: If gay marriage is legal, what about polygamy? Sotomayor asked, "If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?" before referencing "polygamy and incest among adults," as reported by Matt Canham of the Salt Lake Tribune. The argument is an illustration of a broader issue about the culture of American society. To agree that gay marriage is indeed protected by the "equal protection" clause in the Constitution, wouldn't the...

In some ways, today's Supreme Court arguments over California's proposition 8 were overshadowed by the decision of several Democratic senators from red or purple states to openly and active support marriage equality. Actually, even that pales in comparison to Richard Land, the key Southern Baptist political evangelist, who just said, basically, "nevermind," when it comes to the next generation of evangelicals being uncomfortable about gay rights. (To be sure, he still opposes gay rights, still thinks that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, and believes that anti-gay leaders are being ostracized from polite society.) On that last part, he's kind...

Supreme Court justices signaled on Tuesday that they are reluctant to embrace a broad ruling finding a fundamental right to marriage for gays and lesbians across the United States. As sign-waving demonstrators massed outside, the court completed more than an hour of oral argument on whether to let stand a California ban on same-sex marriage without indicating a clear path forward. Swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy raised concerns about the court entering "uncharted waters" on an issue that divides the states. Kennedy even raised the prospect of the court dismissing the case, a relatively unusual move that would leave intact...

During oral arguments today at the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia and attorney Ted Olson had a pointed exchange over whether same-sex marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Scalia's argument, which was advanced by Chief Justice John Roberts before him, was that when the institution of marriage developed historically, it was not done with the explicit intent of excluding gay and lesbian couples. "We don't prescribe law for the future," Scalia said. "We decide what the law is. I'm curious, when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868? When the Fourteenth...

As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a landmark case that seeks to establish “marriage equality” as the law of the land, my thoughts turned to Kody Brown, David Epstein and Kenneth Pinyan. Brown, who appears with his four brides and 17 children in the TLC reality show “Sister Wives,” faces prosecution for violating Utah’s ban on polygamy. Epstein, a Columbia University political science professor, was charged last year with one count of incest for his three-year consensual sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter. And Pinyan, the subject of a documentary film, “Zoo,” which won an award at...

The Supreme Court has ruled that police use of a drug-sniffing dog on a homeowner's porch is a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. [...]

This morning in Washington, the Supreme Court will begin its deliberation of gay marriage. In some three months time, this august body will tell us what the Constitution does or does not say about a supposed right of homosexual people to marry one another. In one regard, it will be a momentous decision. In another, it will be completely meaningless. It all depends on your definition of truth. And about what America’s current fascination with gay marriage says about its ancestors and roots. Because this change in fundamental human definition plays havoc with any concept of absolute truth, and it...

In the Footsteps of the March for Life March 24, 2013 Marriage supporters to rally in Washington, D.C., on March 26 as Supreme Court hears cases John Burger A man opposed to same-sex marriage and in favor of California's Proposition 8 holds signs outside City Hall in San Francisco in this Aug. 12, 2010 photo. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week in a challenge to Proposition 8. (CNS photo/Robert Galbraith, Reuters) Supporters of both traditional marriage and same-sex unions will converge on the nation’s capital this week as the Supreme Court takes up two cases that...

The New York Times, in its role as the bible of the liberal mindset, instructs the liberal justices of the Supreme Court to avoid a sweeping ruling imposing gay marriage across the nation by judicial fiat. And it cautions its readership to be careful what they wish for from the court. That's the gist of this news analysis article by Adam Litvak, titled "Shadow of Roe v. Wade Looms Over Ruling on Gay Marriage." The word "shadow" gives away the game. The piece prominently features the ideas expressed by Justice Ginsburg, in essence that Roe v Wade pre-empted the political...

Finally, the day that proponents of gay marriage have been waiting for is almost upon us. The Supreme Court will be hearing two cases this week that will help determine the course of our country for the next generation. Tuesday will see California's ban on same-sex marriage being presented to the Supreme Court, in the form of Proposition 8. If you will recall, this is the ban that was voted on by citizens of California in 2008. Even though the state is as liberal as any state in America, the voters chose to ban gay marriage. Of course, it was...

When the Supreme Court hears a pair of cases on same-sex marriage on Tuesday and Wednesday, the justices will be working in the shadow of a 40-year-old decision on another subject entirely: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion. Judges, lawyers and scholars have drawn varying lessons from that decision, with some saying that it was needlessly rash and created a culture war. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal and a champion of women’s rights, has long harbored doubts about the ruling. “It’s not that the judgment was wrong, but it moved too far,...

...Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in cases that challenge the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8. The Court should uphold these laws and respect the constitutional authority of citizens and their elected officials to make marriage policy. Next Tuesday, March 26, as the Supreme Court hears these cases, thousands will come to our nation’s capital to March for Marriage.Make your voice heard in support of marriage between a man and a woman—and urge the Court to respect your constitutional authority. We don’t need an activist Court creating a...

For most Americans, the Supreme Court cases being heard on Tuesday and Wednesday next week are about same-sex marriage. But the cases—Hollingsworth v. Perry (the Proposition 8 case from California) and U.S. v. Windsor (the Defense of Marriage Act case)—also are a test of the nation's democratic and decentralized constitutional structure. These cases thus are not just about marriage. They are about how we reach decisions regarding matters of deep moral significance in our federal republic. We learned from Roe v. Wade that the Supreme Court endangers its own legitimacy and exacerbates social conflict when it seeks to resolve moral-legal...

“[U]nder the Constitution, the regulation and control of marital and family relationships are reserved to the States.” — U.S. Supreme Court, Sherrer v. Sherrer (1948) The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is an exception to the rule that a law’s title is as uninformative about the law’s purpose as the titles of Marx Brothers movies (“Duck Soup,” “Horse Feathers,” “Animal Crackers”) are about those movies’ contents. DOMA’s purpose is precisely what its title says. Which is why many conservatives and liberals should be uneasy Wednesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments about its constitutionality. Conservatives who supported DOMA should, after...

Since the 1950s the Longview, Wash. City Council has opened its public meetings with prayer, as Congress has done for 239 years. But fear of a lawsuit from groups like the ALCU has caused the mayor to tell the local ministerial association that it is “not acceptable” for ministers who volunteer to give a Christian prayer that refers to Jesus. To their credit, the ministers refused to give a generic prayer that violates the convictions of their faith. So, for fear of an ACLU threat, city officials decided to exclude ministers simply because their faith teaches them to pray...

"Law sharpens the mind by narrowing it." --Edmund Burke . . Our governor here in Arkansas now has vetoed not one but two anti-abortion bills that made it past the state legislature this session. One bill sought to protect the unborn starting at the 20th week of pregnancy. The other would go into effect after 12 weeks' gestation if a fetal heartbeat could be detected. Both are now law, passed over the governor's objections. The Hon. Mike Beebe is ordinarily the most reasonable and agreeable of men -- even if he is a lawyer by trade and a politician by...