Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was absent from the court Monday with no explanation. Thomas, 75, also was not participating remotely in arguments, as justices sometimes do when they are ill or otherwise can’t be there in person. Chief Justice John Roberts announced Thomas’ absence, saying that his colleague would still participate in the day’s cases, based on the briefs and transcripts of the arguments. The court sometimes, but not always, says when a justice is out sick. .... He took part in the cases then, too.

Use link to article - Source AP

Donald Trump's steadfastness regarding Supreme Court appointments has accomplished more in one week that movement conservatives did in fifty years. The Supreme Court handed down three major decisions this week, limiting an executive order that fabricated presidential authorization to forgive billions of dollars in school loans; denying governmental authority to compel people to create works that violate their free speech and freedom of religion; and prohibiting schools from considering the race of applicants in admissions in public and private institutions. There are two very good summaries of these three cases, here on AT by Andrea Widberg and in Real Clear...

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, denying tens of millions of Americans the chance to get up to $20,000 of their debt erased.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to decide as soon as this week if it will hear a case about whether individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The petition (pdf) in the case Kincaid v. Williams (court file 22-633) was filed in January. The respondent, Kesha Williams, a former detainee in the county who was born male and now identifies as female, is suing the petitioner, Stacey Kincaid, a Democrat, in her official capacity as the sheriff of Fairfax County, Virginia. Williams suffers from gender dysphoria, which can be defined as “discomfort or...

Washington D.C., Feb 9, 2023 / 13:35 pm Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, a federal judge is claiming that the 13th Amendment, which was ratified to abolish slavery, might establish a constitutional right to have an abortion. Under Roe v. Wade, the court previously held that the 14th Amendment protects a right to privacy and a right to privacy protects a woman’s right to decide whether to have an abortion. In the Dobbs decision last June, the court revoked that precedent, stating that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” and that...

The U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to strike down a ban on bump stocks introduced following the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead. The justices may be preparing to hear two lawsuits challenging the bump stock ban, which was introduced by then President Donald Trump in 2018, as the new judicial term begins on October 3. A bump stock is a firearm attachment that allows a semi-automatic weapon to shoot almost as fast as a machine gun does. A bump stock was used by the Las Vegas shooter. Trump instructed the Department of Justice...

Probably you think that the justices sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court must be among the most intelligent people in the country. Granted, the mainstream press spends a lot of time denigrating the intelligence of the conservative justices. But surely then, the liberal justices must be really, really smart. Consider Justice Elena Kagan. She was the Dean of the Harvard Law School. Then she became the Solicitor General of the United States. That’s the person in charge of arguing the government’s positions in the Supreme Court. You need to be really smart to do that job. So if you’re looking...

The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s powers to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, in a decision that could limit the authority of government agencies to address major policy questions without congressional approval. Elaborating on earlier decisions, the high court said federal agencies need explicit authorization from Congress to decide issues of major economic and political significance, drawing on a principle known as the “major questions doctrine.” In his decision for the 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress never gave the EPA the authority to change the methods a power plant uses—regulations known as...

Thanks to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, young women are confronting some basic truths about men and women that feminism has denied for the last half-century. Like other left-wing movements, feminism is based on a denial of reality (or, if you prefer, on lies). The best-known example is the feminist insistence that, except for physical differences, men and women are basically the same. This includes the central feminist belief about men's and women's sexual natures. For half a century, women have been told that their sexual nature is no different from male sexual nature -- just as men can...

USSC rules in favor of gun rights. Huge win for the 2A!!

Sotomayor spoke Thursday to the American Constitution Society, a liberal legal group led by former Sen. Russ Feingold, and didn't bring up the leaked draft, but told the audience she believed the court can help people 'regain the public's confidence' in government institutions. 'Institutions are made up by humans. Because we are human, by necessity we make mistakes. It is the nature of the human enterprise,' Sotomayor said. Sotomayor, who has served on the court since 2009, spoke of the importance of believing that when people do 'wrong things' it does not mean they are 'bad people.' 'There are days...

The Supreme Court has weighed in on when federal law enforcement agents can be sued for excessive force. In a 6 – 3 decision on Wednesday, the court ruled against a man who had sued a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent for use of excessive force, USA Today reported. Robert Boule, the owner of the bed and breakfast, Smuggler’s Inn in Blaine, Washington, said that a border patrol agent had pushed him to the ground in 2014 and said that after he reported the agent to his superiors the agent reported him to the IRS. ... “The 6-3 conservative...

The bulletin cites 'individuals who advocate both for and against abortion' who publicly 'encouraged violence, including against government, religious, and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as those with opposing ideologies.' The high court scheduled an additional day of releasing opinions on Wednesday, with 33 decisions left in the current term until summer break. DHS also warned that 'domestic violent extremists' could use changes in the US-Mexico border enforcement system as a reason to carry out attacks against 'minorities and law enforcement officials' - just weeks after a judge blocked the Biden administration from lifting a pandemic-era expulsion policy...

Republican Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) signaled he is willing to consider voting for President Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, in an interview airing Sunday on “Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren.” Scott said he is looking to meet Jackson and discuss how she sees the role of the judiciary branch.

When it decides on NYSRPA v. Bruen—scheduled for oral arguments today—the Supreme Court will have a chance to stop governments from restricting the right to "bear arms." The part of the Constitution guaranteeing that right has long been ignored by many state and local governments, despite previous Supreme Court rulings that there is an "individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation" in the home. The situation is worst in New York, California and six other "may-issue" states, where officials can turn down requests for a carry permit for any reason, or for no reason at all.

Three Supreme Court justices delivered the same plea in rapid succession in recent days: Don’t view justices as politicians. The justices have reason to be concerned. Recent polls show a sharp drop in approval of a court now dominated by conservatives. The call by justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Amy Coney Barrett for the public not to see court decisions as just an extension of partisan politics isn’t new. But the timing of the recent comments is significant, just after a summer in which conservative majorities on the court prevailed over liberal dissents on abortion, immigration and evictions, and...

This column examines the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson (pdf) and why the left is so upset about it. In Whole Woman’s Health, the court opted not to suspend the Texas Heartbeat Act immediately, but to wait for a hearing on the merits. In addition to agitating the liberal media, the decision has annoyed “progressive” academics. If they teach in law schools, they often belong to an outfit called the American Constitution Society (ACS), a group that is positively beside itself over the court’s order in Whole Woman’s Health. The ACS’s reaction illustrates the absurdity...

The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the Nazi-bought Guelph Treasure will not return to its Jewish heirs. The decision is in line with the court’s traditional tendency to avoid a situation where foreign plaintiffs bring cases to US courts even if they have little connection to the US, according to a New York Law Journal report. The ruling was made despite the fact that the Jewish owners of the medieval collection, who bought it in 1929, sold it to Nazi agents of Hermann Göring in 1935 during a time when they were under a lot of pressure to...

i keep hearing that there is a way for pence to declare many of the EC votes fraudulent. if pence is given the exclusive responsibility to "count" the votes, then even if alternative state EC slate votes are not formally "delivered" to pence, what if anything would prevent pence from inventing a new concept such as "senate presidential notice" and applying it on the fly to the 2020 election, voiding sufficient EC slates of some corrupt swing states such that the election is thrown to congress? a rule of thumb i have often heard in engineering is that the cost...