Free Republic

Hard to believe I have 50,000 comments. I am doing this because we have not done this in a long time and we used to enjoy seeing everyone's comment totals. Something to take our minds off the liberals trying to destroy the country.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Peace Cross, a monument dedicated to local residents killed in World War I, must be torn down. (Photo: The Washington Times/Zuma Press /Newscom) COMMENTARY BY Peter Parisi Peter Parisi is an editor and writer for The Daily Signal. When Republican congressional leaders went to the White House on Jan. 23, 2009—just three days into Barack Obama’s presidency—to discuss legislation, he helpfully reminded them that his policy preferences necessarily had to prevail because “elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” Obama is out of office now,...

WASHINGTON — It has been practically a given that anyone nominated for a federal judgeship by a Republican president had to pass an unspoken litmus test — usually on abortion but often on any number of divisive social issues. The Trump administration has a new litmus test: reining in what conservatives call “the administrative state.” With surprising frankness, the White House has laid out a plan to fill the courts with judges devoted to a legal doctrine that challenges the broad power federal agencies have to interpret laws and enforce regulations, often without being subject to judicial oversight. Those not...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted against one of President Trump’s judicial nominees simply because he is a white male. “The nomination of Marvin Quattlebaum [the judicial nominee] speaks to the overall lack of diversity in President Trump’s selections for the federal judiciary,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Quattlebaum replaces not one, but two scuttled Obama nominees who were African-American.” The Democratic leader lamented the fact that the majority of Trump’s nominees were white. Regardless of Quattlebaum’s qualifications, Schumer thought he was unfit for the job due to his race.

President Trump just announced his tenth wave of judicial nominees -- who are they? Last week, I posted a roundup of the status of judicial nominations, for both circuit and district courts, for circuits up through and including the Fifth Circuit. Today I turn my attention to the Sixth through Eleventh Circuits. But after my earlier roundup, some news happened: this past Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced his tenth wave of judicial nominees, twelve nominees in all. There’s one circuit-court nominee among them — John Nalbandian, whom I’ll discuss below in my section on the Sixth Circuit — plus eight...

Seventeen of President Trump’s federal court nominees cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, setting them up for floor votes as Republicans look to install as many conservative judges as possible. Eight of the judges were deemed very controversial and were approved on a 11-10 party-line votes, while just two were approved unanimously. Three of the judges were for circuit courts. Democrats raised concerns over several of the nominees over their LGBTQ positions, saying they would not be fair to that community. But Democrats spent the most time protesting Thomas Alvin Farr, who was nominated to be a district judge for...

Judicial and LGBT advocates are slamming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for scheduling a vote on a horde of judicial nominees ahead of a possible government shutdown. The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to vote Thursday on 17 judicial nominees, who were re-nominated by President Trump at the beginning of the month. Under Senate rules, nominees have to be approved by the full Senate in order to carry over into a new session of Congress. But advocates are accusing Grassley of trying to avoid public scrutiny by slipping controversial candidates opposed by Democrats into an already stacked agenda....

17 judges

WASHINGTON (AP) — Basic rights and political freedoms in the United States are deteriorating at a faster pace under President Donald Trump, exacerbated by attacks on key institutions like the press and the courts, according to a new report released Tuesday by Freedom House. In its annual global assessment, the think tank slammed the Trump administration for withdrawing from America's "historical commitment to promoting and supporting democracy," calling it perhaps the most striking on a "long list of troubling developments" around the world in 2017. The report criticizes Trump for making false statements, refusing to disclose his taxes and other...

In another striking judicial development, Judge William Alsup, a Clinton appointee from San Francisco, issued an injunctive order Jan. 9 prohibiting President Trump from moving forward rescinding President Obama’s DACA order. Although it only applied to established DACA applicants, and left untouched the ban on future applications, the order is offensive nevertheless, and demonstrates the terrible problem plaguing our country resulting from the actions of activist judges. Essentially, the plaintiffs, which included the State of California, argued that President Trump had acted randomly and capriciously in removing the DACA order because, among other reasons, he did not give notice and...

We are witnessing a treasonous rebellion by leftist judges who are declaring the last election null and void. At the core of these traitors' arguments is the belief that the people do not have the right to express their views through the electoral process. Essentially, these courts are declaring that President Trump doesn't have the same authority as his predecessor and that the powers of the executive branch are constrained by what the judiciary thinks is good policy. These judges assert that President Trump can't overrule the executive orders of his predecessor with his own executive orders. If that were...

There’s been a huge development in the ongoing struggle to protect the Dreamers, the beneficiaries whose immigration status is protected under DACA. U.S. District Judge William Alsup of in San Francisco just issued an injunction blocking the Trump Administration from ending the program as it announced it would do in September.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday launched a review of a little-known but widely used practice of immigration judges closing cases without decisions, potentially reshaping immigration courts and putting hundreds of thousands of people in greater legal limbo. Sessions posed detailed questions challenging the use of "administrative closures," an increasingly common outcome that allows people to stay in the country without legal status. The attorney general invited feedback from advocates and others, after which time he may issue new instructions for immigration judges nationwide. Administrative closures have been a lifeline to immigrants who apply for citizenship, permanent residency or other...

A recent surge in arrests and cocaine seizures in Peru points to an increased presence of Mexican drug cartels, counter-narcotics officials say. The cartels have also contributed to more drug-related violence in Peruvian cities, ports and in remote valleys in this Andean country where coca, cocaine's base material, is grown, the officials say. Peruvian claims of Mexican cartels expanding echo those by officials in other Latin American countries, from Honduras to Argentina, where Mexican gangs have supplanted once-powerful Colombian cartels as kings of the illicit-drug underworld. .... That Mexican drug lords are sending emissaries here is no surprise to Hidalgo...

Today President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to nominate a ninth wave of judicial nominees and a tenth wave of United States Attorney nominees as follows: If confirmed, Joel M. Carson III of New Mexico will serve as a Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Joel Carson currently serves as a part-time Magistrate Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico and as a partner in the Roswell-based firm Carson Ryan, LLC. Prior to being selected as a Magistrate Judge in 2015, and starting his own firm in 2014,...

BIASED Judge in Fusion GPS Case FORCED to Recuse Herself This may be the most obvious case of conflict I’ve seen in a while. How this judge could have ever gotten the Fusion GPS case shows a lack of integrity in our justice system. As True Pundit wrote of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, and her “blatant conflicts of interest in the Fusion GPS case”: On Thursday the United States District Court for the District of Columbia re-assigned the Fusion GPS bank record case to a new federal judge, removing Chutkan from making any additional decisions on the case. This...

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee chastised their Republican colleagues on Thursday, accusing them of rushing President Trump’s judicial nominees through the confirmation process. Ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said it was the fastest confirmation pace for circuit court nominees she could remember in her 25 years on the committee. “I want to point out that it’s a marked contrast to the traditional rate of confirmations,” she said. “For example, last week marked the fourth hearing since May when two circuit court nominees were on the agenda the same day. That’s four times in six months, yet this committee only...

Federal agents spent months tracking down Conn, who cut off his electronic monitor and fled in June. Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge in a more than $500 million Social Security fraud case.

Former US President Barack Obama is set to visit Chinese Leader Xi Jinping this Tuesday while on a five-day trip to China, India and France. A statement from Washington's spokeswoman has told CNN that former President Barack Obama is set to meet with his former counterparts during his trip, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. Obama, who will be arriving in Shanghai to deliver remarks at the Global Alliance of SMEs Summit, will meet with Xi for the first time since September 2016, when both leaders ratified the Paris climate agreement in their respective countries. Just recently, current US President Donald...

WASHINGTON — Louisiana U.S. Sen. John Kennedy lambasted several of the Trump administration's picks for the federal judiciary, calling one nominee "embarrassing" and questioning the competency of the White House office charged with vetting potential judges. Kennedy became the first GOP senator to vote against a Trump administration nominee for a federal judgeship Tuesday night, turning down his thumb at Gregory Katsas' nomination for the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The senator said Katsas, an attorney who currently serves as deputy counsel to President Donald Trump, would have an inherent conflict of interest on the appeals court because of...