Free Republic

Full title: Judicial Watch Sues Virginia Gov. McAuliffe Over Executive Order Granting 206,000 Felons Voting Rights (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced that it today filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Virginia voters against Governor Terry McAuliffe and other commonwealth official over McAuliffe’s executive order that attempts to restore voting rights to about 206,000 convicted felons. The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court of Bedford County, VA, requesting an injunction preventing the enforcement of ( Walker et al. v. McAuliffe et al. (No. CL16000358-00)). On April 22, 2016, McAuliffe signed an executive order titled “Order for Restoration of...

The U.S. Navy chaplain who was removed from the military for disobeying a “lawful” order banning prayer “in Jesus’ name” has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and overturn a decade of rulings in his case. The petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court was filed by attorney John B. Wells on behalf of Gordon J. Klingenschmitt. His case was filed back in 2011, after his removal from the military over the issue of praying “in Jesus’ name” sparked years of battles. Since his removal, Klingenschmitt has been leading the PrayInJesusName.org ministry, and he also has been serving...

Oregon resident Jamie Shupe, who identifies as neither male nor female, can legally be considered nonbinary, a judge ruled. In what legal experts believe is the state's first such ruling, Judge Amy Holmes Hehn ruled Friday that Shupe's sex has been changed from female to nonbinary. "It feels amazing to be free from a binary sex classification system that inadequately addressed who I really am, a system in which I felt confined," the Portland resident said. The Army veteran was assigned the gender of male at birth, but Shupe started transitioning to a female in 2013, more than a decade...

Former Yale basketball captain Jack Montague has filed a lawsuit accusing the Ivy League university of wrongfully expelling him over a sexual assault allegation. The suit filed Thursday in federal court in Connecticut names Yale as a defendant along with two university officials who were involved in processing the complaint against Montague.

A fresh food lawsuit has emerged in Massachusetts following an incident at Panera. Boston Magazine reports that back in January, a New England family placed an online order for a meal from the chain's location in Natick. They ordered a grilled cheese sandwich for their six-year-old daughter, noting that it was for a child with a peanut allergy. The parents claim that after taking a bite, the young girl suffered a reaction that sent her to the hospital, and they discovered a dollop of peanut butter inside the sandwich. Luckily an epi pen saved the girl's life, but the family...

Lt. Brian Rice, one of six Baltimore officers charged in the Gray case, filed his lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maryland on May 2, the same day two of the other officers — Sgt. Alicia White and Officer William Porter — filed a joint defamation lawsuit against Mosby in state Circuit Court. Documents in Rice's case were first unsealed on Monday.

The law firm suing Trump University was founded by a wealthy San Diego lawyer with close ties to the Clintons who served a two-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a kickback scheme to mobilize plaintiffs for class-action lawsuits. William Lerach, best known for winning more than $7 billion in legal settlements of a class action suit he brought against Enron, was found guilty in 2007 of a kickback scheme in which he his firm used intermediaries to pay clients with large stock portfolios a percentage of the law firm’s $11.3 million profits for agreeing to be plaintiffs...

The Kansas Senate is considering a resolution condemning a recent Obama administration decree that public schools allow transgender students to use the restrooms that match their gender identity, not their sex at birth. The nonbinding resolution comes less than a week after the state Supreme Court ruled that legislators failed to equitably fund the school’s 286 public school districts. […] Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, a Hutchinson Republican, said President Barack Obama “overstepped his bounds” by issuing a decree on what should be a state-level decision. …

ICHMOND, Va. -- The debate over whether transgender students should be able to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals court refused Tuesday to reconsider a three-judge panel's ruling on the matter. The Gloucester County School Board had asked for a review by the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a three-judge panel said in a 2-1 decision last month that a Virginia high school discriminated against a transgender teen by forbidding him from using the boy's restroom. In his dissent of Tuesday's decision denying...

[Via Lawnewz] Donald Trump has undoubtedly made the class action lawsuit against Trump University a prime campaign issue. For the last several days, he has been on a tear against federal Judge Gonzolo Curiel who is overseeing one of the class action lawsuits against Trump University. In the lawsuit, former students claim that the University and Trump violated federal law by luring them to sign up with false promises and then defrauded them once they handed over their checks. LawNewz.com discovered that when it comes to politics, Robbins Gellar Rudman & Dowd, the law firm behind the class action lawsuit,...

Just wondering if anyone has heard anyone pursuing this avenue?

Planned Parenthood Referred Sex Traffickers to Shoddy Abortion Center Trenton, NJ -- During the discussion captured on video of a Planned Parenthood staffer helping alleged sex traffickers obtain abortions for young women, the staffer referred them to another abortion facility to better conceal the abortions. However, the abortion center in question has a shoddy history and once put a woman in a coma after a botched abortion. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/02/02/planned-parenthood-referred-sex-traffickers-to-shoddy-abortion-center/

A federal judge has ordered the release of internal Trump University documents in an ongoing lawsuit against the company, including "playbooks" that advised sales personnel how to market high-priced courses on getting rich through real estate. The Friday ruling, in which Judge Gonzalo Curiel cited heightened public interest in presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, was issued in response to a request by The Washington Post. The ruling was a setback for Trump, whose attorneys argued that the documents contained trade secrets. [Snip] Trump, who previously questioned whether Curiel's Hispanic heritage made him biased due to Trump's support for building...

Relatives of the woman shot to death on a San Francisco pier last year filed a lawsuit Friday saying the illegal immigrant accused in the killing should have been in custody if not for a series of mistakes by city and federal workers. The killing of Kate Steinle in July 2015 and the arrest of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez put San Francisco's leaders on the defensive as critics and outside politicians called for a change in the city's sanctuary law. Despite national outrage, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors on Tuesday upheld those protections for people in the country illegally. The...

Christine Boschen says she is not a religious person. She does, however, believe in a higher power. Which is why Boshen says she wasn't phased when, one day at her job in an Oakland office building with the State of California, she heard a small voice in her head. "I was at work, and I got this real quiet voice inside my head that said you need to take a walk. And I was like, 'okay... right now?' Yes, you need to take a walk." Boshen says she now knows it wasn't fresh air she was meant to get. There...

Not so fast, bro. It’s not quite as dramatic as a state telling Obama to take his federal funds and shove them where the sun doesn’t shine, and it’s potentially rife with unintended consequences: What if the Scalia-less Supreme Court rules that the president can issue arbitrary conditions for the receipt of federal funds at his own personal whim? Roger Goodell’s lawyers might have some suggestions for Obama on this one. But at least they’re fighting. Texas, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia have sued the administration in federal court. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appears...

Two officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray are suing Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby for defamation and invasion of privacy. Sgt. Alicia White and Officer William Porter, who are facing charges of involuntary manslaughter in the 25-year-old’s death last April, filed the lawsuit against Mosby, Baltimore sheriff’s office Maj. Sam Cogen and the state of Maryland on May 2, according to Baltimore Circuit Court records made public Wednesday. The officers claim that Mosby and Cogen knew the statement of charges filed against the officers and other statements made by Mosby at a May 1, 2015, news conference announcing...

SAN DIEGO — Tony Gwynn's widow and two children filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to hold the tobacco industry accountable for the Hall of Famer's death. The suit was filed in San Diego Superior Court by Alicia Gwynn and her children, Tony Jr. and Anisha Gwynn-Jones. The suit says Gwynn started dipping as a 17-year-old freshman ballplayer at San Diego State. He died of cancer of the right parotid salivary gland on June 16, 2014, at 54.

PARIS — With its guffawing masculine hilarity, the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, would not be put to shame by the most boisterous American state legislature. The marble-and-velvet setting may be more elegant, but the rowdy laughter says the same thing: Men dominate. Over the last week, that male world has been shaken. The Assembly’s vice president, Denis Baupin, was forced to resign after several women came forward publicly with accusations that he had sexually harassed numerous female colleagues for years. One said Mr. Baupin had pushed her against a wall, grabbed one of her breasts and tried...

A federal lawsuit alleging widespread confusion over California's presidential primary rules asks that voter registration be extended past Monday's deadline until the day of the state's primary election on June 7. "Mistakes are being made," said William Simpich, an Oakland civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit. At issue is whether voters understand the rules for the presidential primary, which differ from those governing other elections in California. Unlike statewide primaries -- where voters now choose any candidate, no matter the political party -- the presidential contests are controlled by the parties themselves. Democrats have opened up their primary to...