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A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday turned down a request for a temporary restraining order that would have stopped the Trump administration’s plan to send test messages to more than 200 million cellphones later in the day. Judge Katherine Polk Failla rejected arguments from lawyers representing people who objected because they believed that the government should not be able to control what messages Americans receive on their devices. At a news conference outside the courthouse after the decision, plaintiff Liane Nikitivich said she was “not sure how terrorism is defined and who will be found to be a terrorist”...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Thursday upheld the legality of New York’s program that props up struggling nuclear plants to provide electricity without carbon dioxide emissions.

Judge Jeff McElroy on Wednesday dismissed all of the charges against three of the five defendants arrested in connection to a New Mexico compound linked to “extremist Muslims” because authorities violated the state’s “10-day rule.” This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

The owner of a company that makes blueprints for 3D-printed guns said Tuesday that he has begun selling instructions for making the guns despite a court order barring him from uploading the directions, The Associated Press reported. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik on Monday extended a previous ruling that barred Cody Wilson and his company, Defense Distributed, from uploading directions for 3D-printed guns to the internet. Wilson said at a news conference that he began selling the instructions in the U.S. on Tuesday morning and has already received almost 400 orders, according to the AP. He indicated he believes he...

Sanity: Though President Barack Obama implemented the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy via executive order — which most constitutional experts said he had no authority to do because he was changing existing immigration law — POTUS Donald Trump has had a difficult time repealing that order through his own executive action. Now, however, a federal judge has handed his administration its first real DACA victory after reversing an earlier Aug. 3 ruling.

A judge late Wednesday signed off on the settlement between the IRS and hundreds of tea party groups, closing out the last major legal battle over what all sides now agree was unwarranted and illegal targeting for political purposes. The IRS agreed to pay $3.5 million to groups that were wronged by the intrusive inspections, and insists it’s made changes so that political targeting can’t occur in the future. A few issues are still being fought over in the courts — including whether former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner will be allowed to forever shield her deposition explaining her...

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....

Federal District Judge George B. Daniels dismissed a lawsuit today by Seth Rich’s parents against FOX News. The Riches alleged in their lawsuit that they had been “collateral damage in a political war” and say their son’s death was exploited for political benefit.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that openly carrying a firearm in public is constitutional. The ruling, issued by a three-judge panel, is a rebuttal to Hawaii’s claim that Second Amendment protections only applied to carrying a gun openly in one’s home. Reuters reports that the case was brought by George Young, after Hawaiian official “twice [denied] him a permit to carry a gun outside.” A District Court ruled that the denial did not infringe rights protected by the Second Amendment, but the Ninth Circuit panel disagreed.

Posting Bloomberg stuff is verboten on FR, so here is a link to the article

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Janus v. AFSCME case has heartened conservatives throughout the nation, especially in non-right-to-work states such as California that require public employees to pay dues to their respective unions. Janus will, over time, reduce the power of these unions as they are forced to spend more time wooing members — and they will have less disposable cash to control state legislatures and city councils.

We all knew this feigned outrage over separating families had nothing to do with separating families, but with ensuring a steady flow of poor and dangerous elements into our country to be released into our communities and never heard from again. Now we have the proof. After the Trump administration marshalled all its security resources away from our border priorities in order to reunite the families, district Judge Dana Sabraw has now placed a halt on their deportations, even as unified family units... Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee, is the same judge who legislated from the bench that the...

A federal court has granted a Christian liberal arts college in Pennsylvania a permanent injunction against the Obama-era abortion pill mandate that required the school to be complicit in providing health care coverage that violated its religious convictions. On Thursday, Judge Joy Flowers Conti of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted permanent relief to Geneva College, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. Conti ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services Obamacare contraception mandate violated the college's rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by requiring...

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...

Organized labor, already reeling from a potentially major financial hit thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last week that could result in millions of public-sector workers cutting off funding, could be subject to another blow from the justices: class-action suits from those workers seeking to get paid back from the unions. In a little-noticed action, the Supreme Court invalidated a ruling last week by the 7th Circuit Court denying class-action certification in a case called Riffey v. Rauner. The case involved nonunion state-subsidized Illinois home healthcare workers seeking to be repaid the funds that for years they were forced to...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 is a ruthless and brazen attack on the freedom of working people. It caps off a shocking Supreme Court term, which saw the justices threaten the rights of women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, and now public service workers. The 1.6 million members of AFSCME keep American communities safe and strong through their selfless service. We are social workers, EMTs, corrections officers, school custodians and more. We plow the roads, drive the school buses and pick up the trash. But that is apparently not enough to get a fair hearing before...

Plaintiff Mark Janus passes in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after a hearing on February 26, 2018 in Washington, DC. The court is scheduled to hear the case, Janus v. AFSCME, to determine whether states violate their employees' First Amendment rights to require them to join public sector unions which they may not want to associate with. Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images Plaintiff Mark Janus passes in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after a hearing on February 26, 2018 in Washington, DC. The court is scheduled to hear the case, Janus v. AFSCME, to...

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that pubic sector unions for state and local employees can’t force non-members to pay a “fair-share” union fee. In a 5-4 ruling Tuesday, the court said the extraction of agency fees from non-consenting public sector employees violates the First Amendment. The case centers on an Illinois law, similar to those in 22 other states, that allow public-sector unions to collect a “fair-share fee” from employees for non-political activities like collective bargaining, regardless of whether those employees belong to the union or not. Mark Janus, a state child support specialist at the center of the case,...

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Under Illinois law, public employees are forced to subsi­ dize a union, even if they choose not to join and strongly object to the positions the union takes in collective bar­ gaining and related activities. We conclude that this arrangement violates the free speech rights of nonmem­ bers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern. We upheld a similar law in Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977), and we recognize the importance of following precedent unless there are strong reasons for...

The Supreme Court just quietly overturned a decision that upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as part of a ruling upholding President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban that primarily targets majority-Muslim countries. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led the US government to force more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent into detention camps. The decision overruled by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Korematsu v. United States, was centered around a man named Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American who refused to comply with the order. On December 18, 1944, the Supreme...