Free Republic

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...

During Friday’s Weekly Address, President Trump said that in picking a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, “my greatest responsibility is to select a justice who will faithfully interpret the Constitution as written.” He added, “Judges are not supposed to re-write the law, re-invent the Constitution, or substitute their own opinions for the will of the people expressed through their laws.” Transcript as Follows: “One of the most important decisions a president will ever make is the decision to nominate a justice to the United States Supreme Court. Last week, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his decision to take senior...

The Justice Department said Wednesday it has begun distributing hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money that had been tied up in a major court battle over sanctuary cities. Byrne Justice Assistance Grants are used by localities and police departments across the nation to pay for equipment, training, personnel or other pressing needs. The Trump administration last year said it would condition the money on localities’ willingness to cooperate in holding illegal immigrants for pickup by federal deportation officers. Chicago sued, saying the conditions weren’t part of federal law.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to Trump’s MAGA agenda has been radical, liberal judges. These men and women, appointed by previous presidents and other powers, have interfered with President Trump’s lawful authority. But that’s all about to change. Judges are supposed to be impartial. They have a solemn duty to uphold our laws. Decisions made by judges can decide the fate of not just one person, but millions. Judges that preside over federal issues can very well affect the lives of every last American. We’ve seen how radical judges can harm our country. Obama-appointed judges have overstepped their bounds by attacking...

President Donald Trump cannot block users on his Twitter feed, a federal judge in New York City ruled Wednesday. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said in her ruling that Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution by preventing certain Americans from viewing his tweets. The social media platform, Buchwald said, is a "designated public forum" from which Trump cannot exclude individual plaintiffs.

A Boston judge has cleared a group of climate protesters who were facing criminal charges stemming from a 2016 protest over a pipeline in West Roxbury, citing the necessity of their actions in a potentially landmark ruling. “It may well be the first of its kind in a case involving climate change, in that it’s a judicial recognition of the measures that we need to take to address climate change,” said Andrew Fischer, an attorney for some of the defendants. “In that sense, it is a revolutionary step.” The protesters, including Karenna Gore, the daughter of former Vice President Al...

Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has died, a court spokesperson confirmed. He was 87. A liberal champion, Reinhardt was appointed to the bench by President Carter in 1980. He authored key liberal court opinions on hot-button topics ranging from abortion and marriage equality to assisted suicide and immigration. At the same time, the opinions made him a target of criticism from conservative corners — and of regular reversal from the Supreme Court.

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...