Free Republic

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., joked about how somebody saving a drowning President Trump would be a "catastrophe" at the start of an event in Sunshine, Fla., on Sunday. In a video reported by the Daily Caller, Hastings said he first learned of the joke from Ari Silver, whose father is former Florida state legislator and rabbi Barry Silver. “Do you know the difference between a crisis and a catastrophe?” Hastings said, retelling the joke. "A crisis is if Donald Trump falls into the Potomac River and can’t swim,” Hastings said. A "catastrophe," he added, "is anybody saves his ass.'” Cheers...

Judge T.S. Ellis III revealed in open court Friday that he has received death threats relating to his presiding over Paul Manafort’s trial for bank and tax fraud at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The judge has since retained the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service. “I have the marshal’s protection,” Ellis said. “I don’t even go to the hotel alone. I won’t even reveal the name of the hotel.” “I had no idea this case excited this emotion in the public,” he added.

Shortened title. Full title: New Mexico Judge Accuses Prosecutors of Anti-Muslim Bias in Her Decision to Release Dangerous Jihadists Running Islamic Terror Camp Muslim Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was arrested earlier this month at a terrorist compound in New Mexico. Wahhaj was training children to commit mass shootings at US schools. Siraj ibn Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam who was named as a possible co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. New Mexico police entered a dangerous Islamist terrorist camp in New Mexico this month after they grew tired of FBI stalling.

SEATTLE - A Washington state judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by young activists who argued the state is violating their rights by failing to protect them from climate change. In his ruling Tuesday, King County Superior Court Judge Michael Scott says the issues in the case are political questions that must be addressed by the legislative and executive branches and cannot be resolved by a court.

A federal judge on Thursday threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt after discovering that the Trump administration attempted to transfer a woman and her daughter out of the country while an appeal hearing for their deportation was underway. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan granted the American Civil Liberty Union's (ACLU) request for an emergency order to halt the expedited removal of immigrants seeking asylum from domestic abuse and gang violence after he learned the government had put a plaintiff in the case and her daughter on a flight to Central America.

A U.S. court on Monday ruled the Trump administration could not enforce an updated policy barring certain transgender people from serving in the U.S. military, becoming the second court in the country to rule against the government since it unveiled the policy in March. Trump announced on March 23 that he would endorse a plan by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to restrict the military service of transgender people who experience a condition called gender dysphoria. The policy replaced an outright ban on transgender service members that Trump announced last year on Twitter, citing concern over military focus and medical costs....

<p>An Iranian-American’s five-month jail sentence was vacated one week after he filed an appeal accusing the Sandy Springs judge who sentenced him of harboring anti-Islamic bias.</p> <p>Municipal Court Judge Sharon Dickson recently came under fire for remarks she made during Fazial Azizan’s sentencing last year. According to court transcripts, Dickson referenced the nursing student’s heritage multiple times, questioned his respect for women and called him “despicable.”</p>

PAINESVILLE, Ohio - Painesville Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti, known for his very creative sentences, has handed down - or scooped out - another one. "You like to screw around with crap? That's what you're gonna do for 3 days." Bayley Toth of Painesville was found guilty of criminal mischief after a night with friends in a local park. Toth jumped on top of a van and placed a traffic cone on it. He then tipped over a porta-potty, knocked a WiFi bridge down and threw 2 lifesaving rings into the lake, one of which was never found. The Judge...

Trump Nominee Judge Affirmed Despite Anti-Gun Past 23 Republican Senators voted for him. Posted July 13, 2018 in Legal Issues by Russ Chastain with No Comments A recent article the Washington Free Beacon is headlined, “Senate Confirms Trump Nominee with Questionable Gun Record Despite Majority of Republicans Voting No.” So, what about Mark Bennett’s record is “questionable,” and why did so many Republicans vote against his confirmation to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals? Questions about Bennett’s record were first raised during hearings in the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) described the record of the former Republican attorney general...

Hope. Change. Jihad. Iyman Faris, 49, was sentenced in 2003 for aiding and abetting al-Qaida by scoping out the iconic New York bridge as a part of a plot to cut through the cables supporting the structure. He had met with Osam bin Laden in Afghanistan and worked with 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Faris is set to be released on Dec. 23, 2020, but a court filing last year in a U.S. District Court argued that Faris lied on immigration papers and that his terrorist affiliations demonstrated a lack of commitment to the Constitution.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday nominated Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, to succeed Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Trump made the announcement at the White House. NBC News broke the story shortly before the president's made his choice public. Kavanaugh serves on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which often rules on major challenges to federal laws and policies. If confirmed, he would make the Supreme Court solidly conservative, joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — providing a five-vote majority.

The Democrat Party, as a political force and unit, will do all that it can to deny POTUS, Trump, his choice to choose the next POTUS appointed & Senate, confirmed Associate Supreme Court Justice. This action, IMHO, is a big and devastating political choice/action which will further hurt the Democrat Party politically come, the November Mid-Term elections. I suspect somewhere between three & five Democrat Senators will vote to confirm Trumps choice, but, one can never be sure....so, we will have wait and see how this plays out. However, I can safely assure the voters that Democrat "Nay" votes will...

NY Judge: Trump Admin Acted In 'Bad Faith' By Adding Citizenship QuestionCiting “bad faith,” a federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to disclose additional information regarding its decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Judge Jesse Furman of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York announced on Tuesday that lawyers representing the government must produce a log of documents that were being withheld, as well as provide an explanation for why the administration did so. Furman further demanded that the government include documents from the Commerce and Justice Departments...

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump's campaign and former Trump adviser Roger Stone conspired with Russia and WikiLeaks to publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails during the 2016 presidential race. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle said in a ruling Tuesday evening that the suit's efforts to tie the Trump campaign and Stone's alleged actions to the nation's capital were too flimsy for the case to proceed in a Washington, D.C., court. "The Trump Campaign’s efforts to elect President Trump in D.C. are not suit-related contacts for those efforts did not involve acts taken...

It's a glorious time to be alive. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is stepping down, meaning that Donald Trump gets to pick another Supreme Court nominee, and those on the Left are having a white-hot thermonuclear meltdown which is more spectacular and beautiful to witness than any sunset...especially since this likely does represent the sun setting on many of their most beloved violations of the Constitution. Many progressives are especially bereft of hope because, judging on their social media posts, they actually believe that all laws come from the Supreme Court rather than being created by our elected officials...

A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to end its migrant family separation policy within 30 days late Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw of San Diego issued the preliminary injunction, finding the practice likely violates the Constitution. The decision is not a ruling on the merits of the dispute. “Asylum seekers like Ms. L. and many other class members may be fleeing persecution and are entitled to careful consideration by government officials, particularly so if they have a credible fear of persecution,” he wrote. “We are a country of laws, and of compassion. We have plainly...

LOS ANGELES — Judge Dolly M. Gee has called the treatment of immigrant children in detention “deplorable” in a legal opinion. She has castigated the federal government for “fear mongering” when it argued that the detention of migrant families at the border was a necessary deterrent. And that was during the Obama administration. (clip) The Trump administration, in issuing the executive order, is expected to ask the federal courts to alter a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores settlement that limits the detention of migrant families to no more than 20 days. Right now we have the lawful authority...

West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry, who authored a book on political corruption in his home state, was indicted on 22 federal charges, ranging from fraud to witness tampering, for alleged corruption of his own. According to the indictment, Loughry fraudulently used a government-issued credit cards for personal use, took an historic Supreme Court desk back to his house for use in a “home office,” and then lied about it to cover it up. Prosecutors says the Justice Loughry falsified the mileage on trips he took in a Supreme Court car, for which he used a government card for...

The judge appointed by Barack Obama who put Paul Manafort in jail this week previously cleared Hillary Clinton of responsibility for the deaths of four American servicemen in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. Manafort was put in jail for allegedly engaging in witness tampering, but most people see the jailing as a fraud to divert public attention away from the IG report that slammed James Comey and bolstered President Donald Trump’s arguments against the corrupt Deep State. Amy Berman Jackson, a past Bill Clinton donor and federal judge, threw out a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton filed by Sean Smith’s mother...

Special counsel Robert Mueller filed a superseding indictment Friday against former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, and added Russian citizen Konstantin Kilimnik as a defendant. The superseding indictment lodged by a grand jury sitting in federal court in Washington, DC, came days after Mueller asked the judge in Manafort's case to revoke his bail and jail him because of an alleged effort to tamper with witnesses. This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.