Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge recommended Thursday that President Donald Trump mute rather than block some of his critics from following him on Twitter to resolve a First Amendment lawsuit.U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald suggested a settlement as the preferred outcome after hearing lawyers argue whether it’s constitutional for Trump to block some followers.“Isn’t the answer he just mutes the person he finds personally offensive?” she asked. “He can avoid hearing them by muting them.” The hearing stemmed from a lawsuit filed in July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and seven people rejected by...

When District Attorney Abel Reyna alighted from his car at the early voting center, the private investigator who served him with a witness subpoena had the rare distinction of a rooting section. The rooting section took cell phone in hand to report the news. As quickly as the gumshoe executed the return of service acknowledging that Abel Reyna is summoned to appear as a witness in the status conference hearing in the case of State V. Matthew Clendennen at 9 a.m. on Monday in the 54th Criminal District Court, the news hit the internet like a small pebble making wide...

Professor Alex Stein, recently elected Supreme Court justice, was until recently completely anonymous to the Israeli public. However, a series of quotes from his personal Facebook account, which will be revealed this weekend in an article by Avishay Grynizig in the newspaper B'Sheva and published on Tuesday evening on Channel 2, make it apparent why Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked wanted to appoint him to the position. Stein is a well-known expert in economic law who is also well-known for his opposition to judicial activism. The Facebook account was limited to be viewed by friends, in which he raised his views...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Thursday that the Department of Justice was ending the “executive branch legal activism” of the previous administration, while also fighting the judicial activism of liberal judges. “I think the department did become too political” under President Barack Obama, Sessions said. “Essentially, it was executive branch legal activism. They would take cases or regulations or statutes and expand or redefine the meaning of words in them to advance the agenda that they thought ought to be advanced — an agenda that often had zero chance of passing Congress, where...

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide if states should be able to collect taxes on internet sales, which would generate billions in revenue for local governments, but also raise the cost of online shopping for consumers. Just over a quarter-century ago, the court ruled that a state could not force mail order catalog companies to collect sales taxes unless they had a physical presence in the state. Led by South Dakota, 36 states want the court to take another look at the issue, arguing that the 1992 decision was issued “before Amazon was even selling books out of Jeff...

The Constitution and the laws passed by Congress define one person who determines and executes U.S. immigration policy and U.S. District Judge William Orrick is not it. Yet Judge Orrick is once again opposing the expressed will of the American people through their elected representatives by issuing a permanent ban on President Trump’s executive order defunding sanctuary cities: A federal judge in California has blocked President Trump’s executive order to cut funding from sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with U.S. immigration officials. U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick issued the ruling Monday in lawsuits brought by San Francisco and Santa...

A three-judge court panel ruled Wednesday that a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, is unconstitutional, a decision that a legal scholar says could imperil other similar memorials. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the 40-foot cross erected 92 years ago violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. “The monument here has the primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the government in religion,” Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote for the majority. “The Latin cross is the core symbol of Christianity. And here, it is 40...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told college students in New York City that she sometimes feels “great turmoil” inside when she is hearing arguments on the bench, but works hard to keep her emotions and personal biases in check. […] “You can’t do human activity — and judging is a human activity — without having human emotions,” she told the crowd at the LeFrak Concert Hall. “The sense of how you deal with it is to acknowledge it. I look at it, examine it, try to figure out the effect it’s having, and then try to adjust my behavior...

BATON ROUGE, LA. — A federal judge has ruled that Black Lives Matter is a social movement that can't be sued over an officer's injuries during a protest following a deadly police shooting in Baton Rouge last year. A Baton Rouge police officer sued Black Lives Matter and DeRay Mckesson, a prominent activist in the movement. But U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson ruled Thursday that Black Lives Matter is not "an entity of any sort," and like the tea party or civil rights movement, it can't be sued.

Hallelujah! The third branch of the federal government, the appointed judicial branch, is finally getting serious about climate science. No longer can the elected executive branch and the elected legislative branches cave in to popular pressure to avoid the inconvenient truth that climate change adaptations will be hugely expensive. My hope is that the lawsuits that will surely follow Hurricanes Maria, Jose, Irma and Harvey will help normalize the idea that "government can be legally accountable for failure to prevent foreseeable harms to its citizens." That quote comes from a hot-off-the-press column published in the Sept. 8 issue of Science,...

For decades, a debate over lifetime appointments in the federal judiciary have pitted those who value freedom from political influence against those who see a need for accountability. The former want to continue the tradition, and the latter want either term limits, retention elections, or a combination of both, as many states have in place now. No serious effort has been made to propose such a system, but perhaps an “exit interview” by the New York Times’ Adam Liptak of retired appellate jurist Richard Posner will prompt one. And it should, as Posner inadvertently makes the best possible case for...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the country under its revised travel ban. A three-judge panel decided that grandparents, cousins and similarly close extended family relationships of people in the U.S. shouldn't be prevented from coming to the country. The court also said refugees already accepted by a resettlement agency shouldn't be banned. The appeals court decision upholds a decision from a district court judge in Hawaii, who said the administration's view was too narrow. The decision impacts the revised travel ban, which temporarily suspends new...

Pro-gun rally in front of Maryland State House in Annapolis on Feb. 6, 2013 protesting the state’s controversial Firearms Safety Act. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times) A long-simmering challenge against Maryland’s 2013 Firearms Safety Act has been appealed to the nation’s highest court. Attorneys for the Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation on Friday filed the 325-page petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Stephen Kolbe and a series of gun stores and shooting clubs asking the court to protect popular semi-automatic rifles and magazines from prohibition. At stake is the 2013...

A federal judge in Honolulu has expanded the Trump administration’s list of family relationships needed by people seeking new visas from six mostly Muslim countries to avoid a travel ban. U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled today that the travel ban exemptions should include grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts and other relatives. President Donald Trump’s travel ban, which was partially allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court, did not include grandparents, grandchildren and other relations considered “bona-fide” family relationships to be granted an exemption to the ban. The administration said a bona fide relationship would be a parent, spouse, fiance, son,...

Former FBI director James Comey made a quiet visit to The New York Times building on Thursday, one of few public outings since he admitted leaking stories to the newspaper about President Trump before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. Comey kept his sunglasses on and his gaze forward as he marched through the front entrance of the Times Square office building which houses the publication. He was accompanied by his wife Patrice Failor who also wore sunglasses. Unmistakable as he towered over the crowds in a crisp navy suit and tie on one of the warmest days of...

Former FBI director James Comey made a quiet visit to The New York Times building on Thursday, one of few public outings since he admitted leaking stories to the newspaper about President Trump before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. Comey kept his sunglasses on and his gaze forward as he marched through the front entrance of the Times Square office building which houses the publication. He was accompanied by his wife Patrice Failor who also wore sunglasses. Unmistakable as he towered over the crowds in a crisp navy suit and tie on one of the warmest days of...

Why do judges wear black robes? It’s a question few judges today seem to be asking themselves. It certainly appears not to have troubled the mind of Chief Judge Roger Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals who, it seems, must instead be a student of Jorge Luis Borges. A couple of days ago, Judge Gregory, writing for the majority, upheld a lower court’s decision against President Trump’s revised Executive Order imposing a temporary travel ban from a handful of countries identified as hotbeds of terrorist activity. As Byron York points out, the decision broke 10 to 3 along...

Members of the North Carolina General Assembly introduced a bill on Tuesday, citing the 10th Amendment, which affirms that the U.S. Supreme Court exceeded its authority under the Constitution and in relation to the “decree of Almighty God” by legalizing same-sex marriage, and contends that the Obergefell v. Hodges decision “is null and void” in North Carolina and that the Tar Heel state shall only recognize marriages between one man and one woman. The legislation explains that North Carolina seeks to follow the 2012 law that was established in Section 6 of Article XIV of the North Carolina Constitution, which...

A federal appeals court in Chicago on Tuesday ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act also protects LGBT employees from workplace discrimination, the first time a federal appellate court has come to that conclusion. The decision by the full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago comes just three weeks after a three-judge panel in Atlanta ruled the opposite, saying employers aren’t prohibited from discriminating against employees based on sexual orientation. It also comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has begun setting its own policies on LGBT rights. Late in January, the White House declared Trump would enforce an...

Due to the unfortunate passing of Justice Scalia in February of 2016, the United States Senate recently began confirmation hearings for President Trump’s pick to take his seat on the Supreme Court—Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit. Judge Gorsuch has received almost universal acclamation from those on the Right. He is admired for his even temperament, his common sense, his dedication to originalism and textualism, and his belief that judges shouldn’t employ an “outcome based” judicial activism. Despite being unanimously confirmed to his post on the 10th Circuit by the Senate in 2006, the Left is now opposing his...