Free Republic

An Ohio couple committed a crime when they recently gave child welfare officials a 9-year-old boy they raised from infancy, according to a prosecutor, after they said he was displaying aggressive behavior and threatened the family with a knife. Forty-nine-year-old Cleveland Cox and 52-year-old Lisa Cox pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a Butler County court to charges of nonsupport of dependents. **SNIP** Adolfo Olivas, an attorney appointed by the court to protect the boy's interests, has said the emotionally hurt and confused child is now receiving help that the parents should have gotten for him.

Winning a battle that costs you a war is no victory. The silver lining from President Obama’s and Senate Democrats’ unprecedented power grab last week is that now a conservative Republican president can appoint a Supreme Court that will restore the Constitution to its historical place in our nation’s life, revitalizing limited government and safeguarding fundamental rights. Had conservatives invoked the nuclear option, mainstream media outlets would have given it wall-to-wall coverage under the banner, “The Death of Democracy in America.” MSNBC hosts might have openly wept on camera. Instead, those outlets are virtually silent, and what little coverage they...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLQebqVQKcc The Senate, by not passing a budget, and by saying fund all or nothing, has taken away the House's power of the purse to defund courts or an other agency that goes beyond its power. If the House impeaches a judge, the current senate would neither try nor convict and remove from office. If the House abolished a court, or limited its jurisdiction, that law would never get through the senate. Every means by which the people can rein in a courts power would be halted by the US Senate and then by former Senator Barack Obama. Therefore, we...

The [Romeike] family arrived in the US in 2008 and settled in Tennessee. In 2010 a state court granted their request for asylum but two years later the Obama administration called for a review and a higher court overturned the decision. The Romeikes' only hope of staying in the US now rests with the Supreme Court which still hasn't decided whether to hear their appeal.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) derided today's House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing as a “monkey court,” accusing Republicans of exhibiting false concern during testimony and chastising them for raising security concerns that he said were specious.

An appeals court in Miami just shot down Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade in his on-going custody battle against ex-wife Siohvaughn Funches. The Third District Court of Appeals announced minutes ago it ruled against Wade in his attempt to have Funches, the mother of his two boys, mentally evaluated. The court found that Funches' videotaped protest over the summer in which she staged a sit-in in front of a Chicago courthouse where the couple's financial settlement was being discussed provides no sufficient grounds to have her studied by a shrink.

The United States Supreme Court will hear a case involving the forced unionization of "personal care providers" in Illinois that the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation and two other groups asked the Court to hear. If the high court rules against the Illinois forced unionization, the decision could outlaw such schemes nationwide. In Michigan, the Service Employees International Union took more than $34 million from tens of thousands of home-based caregivers who were forced into the union. That scheme officially ended this year. In the class action lawsuit headed to the Supreme Court, Pamela Harris and seven other Illinois personal care...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has granted the National Security Agency (NSA) permission to continue its collection of records on all U.S. phone calls. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced the court's approval in a statement late Friday. The court authorizes the program for only limited time periods and requires that the government submit new requests every several months for re-authorization. The existence of the bulk phone data collection was one of the most controversial revelations from the leaks by Edward Snowden. The NSA uses the program to collect records such as phone numbers, call times and...

The Supreme Court this week refused to hear an appeal from the Duke lacrosse players stemming from the false accusations of rape in Durham in 2006. Effectively, that ends their civil rights lawsuit, and precludes their ever having a day in court in which their full stories may be told. And that in itself provides a paradigm of the state of justice in America today.

The Supreme Court on Monday resumes its role as the uneasy arbiter of America’s intractable social conflicts with a new docket that features battles over affirmative action, campaign finance and abortion, among other divisive issues.

Tenth Circuit Panel Rules in Favor of Colo. Company Against Abortion Pill Mandate A three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Colorado-based business does not have to adhere to the federal government's abortion pill mandate as its lawsuit proceeds. In a ruling issued Thursday, the panel affirmed a lower court ruling on behalf of Hercules Industries, a family-owned Denver-based HVAC manufacturer. The decision noted that the motion to appeal was "denied as moot" given that the United States Supreme Court likely will hear arguments in a similar lawsuit regarding the Hobby Lobby retail chain.... Full...

A Texas Court of Appeals in Austin has overturned the conviction of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, attorney Brian Wice told KVUE sister station KHOU 11 News.

A United States District Court Judge has dismissed a suit brought by an atheist organization against the motto "In God We Trust" being on the national currency. Judge Harold Baer Jr. of the Southern District of New York ruled Monday that a suit brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and others should be dismissed. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly assumed the motto's secular purpose and effect, and all circuit courts that have considered this issue-namely the Ninth, Fifth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuit- have found no constitutional violation in the motto's inclusion on currency," wrote Baer. Read full story @...

A judge tossed all charges, including murder, against a Laotian woman accused of running over her boyfriend with her car last year after a tequila-infused fight. Sounilak Ouchlaeun, 34, was facing murder and felony driving under the influence charges for backing over Conrado Mendoza with her 2010 Toyota Venza on Nov. 19, 2012, in the driveway of the couple’s Spring Valley home.

Former TVA Vice President 58-year-old Masoud Bajestani plead guilty to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and Iranian Transactions Regulations, and two counts of filing false income tax returns. Bajestani sentencing is set for January 15, in U.S. District Court in Knoxville. Bajestani faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy to violate the IEEPA, and three years for each count of filing a false tax return. He also faces a maximum fine of $250,000 on each count. In February 2013, a federal grand jury charged Bajestani, with conspiracy, violations of the IEEPA...

President Obama and his successors in the Oval Office are not obligated to make public the names of individuals visiting the White House, according to a decision of the federal Circuit Court for the District of Columbia made public Friday. The case was brought by Judicial Watch, the government watchdog nonprofit that has been fighting a long legal battle seeking to force release of the White House visitor logs as public records under the Freedom of Information Act. But in a decision that is drawing intense criticism from across the ideological spectrum, the circuit court said the president has a...

As lawmakers get ready to head back to Capitol Hill, Tampa Bay Catholics are joining believers across the country to push for immigration reform. "It's really a three-prong approach, through prayer, education and advocacy," said Sabrina Burton Schultz, director of the Diocese of St. Petersburg's life ministry office. The diocese of 321,459 Catholics, which covers Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties, is encouraging parishioners to contact politicians about the issue. The diocese also is organizing a candlelight prayer vigil, Hispanic Mass and a pilgrimage of the images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Lujan. Schultz said...

The National Security Agency unlawfully gathered as many as tens of thousands of e-mails and other electronic communications between Americans as part of a now-discontinued collection program, according to a 2011 secret court opinion. The 86-page opinion, which was declassified by U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday, explains why the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled the collection method unconstitutional. The judge, John D. Bates, found that the government had “advised the court that the volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe.”

From Firearms Records Bureau v. Simkin (Mass. Aug. 8, 2013): Simkin is a New Hampshire resident and a federally licensed firearms dealer who is engaged in the “buying and selling [of] firearms in the region, from private parties, at gun shows, and at auctions.” Since 2002, he has held a temporary nonresident Class A unrestricted license to carry firearms in Massachusetts. In February, 2009, Simkin applied to the bureau for a renewal of his license, stating as his purpose for requesting the renewal that he traveled in and through Massachusetts for business purposes, carrying firearms, ammunition, and cash, and...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An Illinois businessman outraged by a court order that he return more than $500,000 in insurance money related to a 2001 wreck that killed his teenage son wanted to pay the money back in pennies in protest, only to recognize that was unfeasible. So, Roger Herrin settled on quarters — four tons of them. Packed in 150 transparent sacks each weighing about 50 pounds, the $150,000 in coins were nearly one-third of the money an appellate court required Herrin to pay back to resolve years-long legal feuding among the crash's survivors over how $800,000 in insurance...