Free Republic

A federal appeals court Monday rejected restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers placed on addressing race-related issues in workplace training — part of a controversial 2022 law that DeSantis dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act. The workplace-training part of the law listed eight race-related concepts and said that a required training program or other activity that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual (an employee) to believe any of the following concepts As an example of the concepts, the law targeted compelling employees to believe that an “individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or...

A former US ambassador to Bolivia charged with spying for Cuba for four decades told a judge on Thursday sensationally admitted to the charges and said he'd been gathering information for the rogue state since 1981. Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in December for what US officials called 'one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent.' Rocha pleaded not guilty two weeks ago to charges of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government but he told Judge Beth Bloom at a pre-trial conference on Thursday that he wanted...

A federal court dismissed a case Tuesday against Republican Iowa Gov. Kimberly Reynolds’ prohibition of mask mandate in school districts across the state, official documents showed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found “persuasive” the argument that “the general risks associated with COVID-19, even though COVID-19 remains an ever-present concern in society, are not enough to show ‘imminent and substantial’ harm,” court papers showed in part. The court also decided that “because Plaintiffs have only alleged the potential risk of severe illness should they contract COVID-19 at school, the risk of harm is too speculative to satisfy...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday affirmed a $5 million arbitration award against MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell in favor of a software engineer who challenged data that Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and tipped the outcome to Joe Biden. Lindell said he plans to appeal. Asked if he can afford to pay, he pointed out that the breach-of-contract lawsuit was against one of his companies, Lindell Management LLC, and not against him personally. “Of course we’re going to appeal it. This guy doesn’t have a dime coming,” Lindell said.

A federal judge in California on Jan. 3 dismissed a lawsuit that sought to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 Republican primary ballot in that state. District Judge David Carter granted a motion to dismiss the lawsuit “with prejudice,” which means that it can’t be submitted to the same court again, according to court papers. A plaintiff attempted to argue that they suffered “emotional injury” as a result of the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while watching the events unfold on television, on the radio, and in various publications. They then argued that the...

United States District Judge for the District of Idaho, B. Lynn Winmill, has granted a motion for preliminary injunction to block the January 1, 2024 implementation of House Bill 71, which was signed into law following the 2023 Idaho Legislative session. HB71, also called the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, was written by the Idaho Family Policy Center and sponsored by Representative Bruce Skaug. The legislation was written to stop hormone changing drugs, puberty blocking drugs, and sex-change surgeries from being prescribed for minor children in Idaho for the reasons of ‘gender dysphoria’ and transitioning children from their birth sex to...

An Idaho law passed this year that bans gender-affirming care for minors will not go into effect on Jan. 1, as planned. A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction on the lawsuit against the ban. House Bill 71, "The Vulnerable Child Protective Act" was signed into Idaho law in April. It outlaws gender-affirming care for transgender minors; including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. The law finds any doctor that provides gender-transition care guilty of a felony, punishable by up to 10 years of prison time. After the law was signed, a lawsuit was filed against the state on...

A right-wing group specializing in hidden-camera investigations will not be able to use the First Amendment to stop the federal government from accessing documents and communications related to the group’s apparent acquisition of a stolen diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter.As Law&Crime previously reported, the FBI executed a search warrant in 2021 at the property of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, as well as from Project Veritas staffers Spencer Meads and Eric Cochran. The search warrants were granted in connection with the theft and sale of the personal journal belonging to Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. Two people, Aimee...

A Finnish cabinet minister saying all indications are that a Chinese ship deliberately damaged... South Korea proclaiming the launch of its first spy satellite... The Israeli Air Force extending its bombing campaign into the southern portions of Gaza... A Pro-Palestinian protester torching herself in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta... A federal judge ruling that President Trump has no immunity... The Turkish military striking 16 targets in northern Iraq. The targets linked to Kurdish groups... A former federal prison guard sentenced to more than five years in prison for sexually abusing inmates... A US base in northeastern Syria attacked......

In the Progressive utopia championed by Woodrow Wilson and his successors, government will iron out the imperfections in human affairs through the use of regulatory agencies run by non-political experts. Such people, being experts and completely non-political, would pose no reason for concern about abuse of power, because of course they would never seek go outside their proper regulatory portfolio to use their authority to stamp out the freedoms and speech of their political opponents on important topics of the day. In the real world government regulators since the creation of their agencies have inevitably used their powers to disadvantage...

On the face of it, Friday’s decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ recently enacted ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines doesn’t change circumstances on the ground. The three-judge panel that issued today’s decision had previously stayed U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn’s injunction while the state appealed, so the law has been in effect throughout litigation. Still, the 2-1 decision does matter, both because it provides an opportunity for some or all of the plaintiffs to appeal on an emergency basis to the Supreme Court and because it will...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a lower court decision to block Idaho’s abortion ban Thursday, according to court documents. U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Idaho B. Lynn Winmill, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, ruled in August that the law could stop doctors from referring patients to abortion clinics in other states in an emergency due to fear of prosecution. A panel of judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, however, determined that the state’s case to uphold the ban was likely to succeed and that for the time being “public interest is...

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports” that House Republicans who want to move forward with the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden are “owned” by former President Donald Trump. Wasserman Schultz said, “Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans, the extreme MAGA wing. That’s what this is about. They are succumbing to Donald Trump, and they are allowing Donald Trump to hold our economy hostage. They are giving in to their extreme MAGA wing, and they will potentially, likely crash our economy.” She continued, “They are afraid. They know they have nothing there, that there has...

On August 3, 2023, Judge Janet Bond Arterton of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut ruled on whether the recent Connecticut law banning the possession of common semi-automatic rifles and pistols under the appellation of “assault weapons” and of standard capacity magazines which hold more than ten rounds. Judge Arterton ruled the law is not prohibited by the Second Amendment. She does not see it as an infringement because, she claims, “assault weapons” and magazines over ten rounds are not arms protected by the Second Amendment. Magazines that hold more than ten rounds are referred to...

The measure barred trans women and girls of all ages from participating in female sports teams at public schools in the state, from primary school through college. A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to allow Idaho to enforce a first-in-the-nation ban on transgender women and girls from participating in female sports leagues, saying the measure likely was unconstitutional. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel delivered a victory to LGBTQ rights advocates by upholding an injunction blocking Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, the first of many such laws to be enacted by Republican-led states. “This is an...

Last month, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton tossed out a lawsuit challenging Connecticut’s ban on concealed carry in state parks, ruling that the plaintiff in the litigation didn’t have standing to sue because there was no credible threat of him being arrested or prosecuted for violating the ban. That was an exceedingly odd decision, but it kept the ban in place (at least for now), which counts as a win as far as anti-gunners are concerned. Now Arterton has followed up with another legal doozy, rejecting a preliminary injunction against the state’s newly-expanded ban on so-called assault weapons and...

A federal judge Wednesday rejected former President Trump’s request for a new trial after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, an appointee of former President Clinton, said the jury’s verdict was not seriously erroneous or a serious miscarriage of justice, rejecting Trump’s claim that the $5 million in damages he was ordered to pay was excessive and other arguments. “There is no basis for disturbing the jury’s sexual assault damages,” Kaplan wrote in the 59-page ruling. “And Mr. Trump’s arguments with respect to the defamation damages are...

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Virginia this week delivered a message to Congress, the White House and developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline: not so fast. Pennsylvania-based Equitrans Midstream’s roughly 300-mile pipeline, envisioned to bring shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia to markets in the Southeast, was fast-tracked as part of the Biden administration’s deal with Congress to suspend the debt limit in June. It’s also supported by Pennsylvania congressmen, including U.S. Reps. John Joyce, R-Blair, and Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, who joined U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., to introduce the legislation in May that helped...

The developers of Mountain Valley Pipeline have asked the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency intervention to allow the project’s construction to progress. The pipeline developers made their application late Friday to vacate the stays of the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Such applications represent a request for emergency action addressed to a specific justice, in this case Chief Justice John Roberts. Each justice is assigned to circuits to handle such applications, and Roberts has the Fourth Circuit, which includes the region where the pipeline is being developed. The 35-page filing is in...

A record number of bills aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ people have become law in the past three years, but the majority of those that have faced legal challenges haven’t held up in court, according to an NBC News analysis, legal experts and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed legal challenges against some of the laws. Just this year, state representatives introduced 491 bills aimed at restricting LGBTQ rights, with 77 of them becoming law, according to the ACLU. The majority of bills proposed and passed focused on limiting the ability of transgender youth to receive...