Free Republic

NPR Cries..... A federal appeals court panel ruled on Monday that the Trump administration can end humanitarian protections for some 300,000 immigrants living in the United States, clearing the way for their potential deportation starting next year. The 9th Circuit Appeals Court's decision affects citizens from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades, have U.S.-born children and are considered essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic. At issue is the termination of Temporary Protected Status, a form of humanitarian relief created by Congress and administered by the Department of Homeland Security. TPS...

Federal judge rules Gov. Wolf’s shutdown orders were unconstitutional A federal judge in Pittsburgh on Monday found that orders issued by Gov. Tom Wolf restricting the size of gatherings and closing non-essential businesses to protect against the spread of covid-19 were unconstitutional.

A federal judge ruled on Monday that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) coronavirus orders, which shut down the state, closed businesses and limited gatherings, were unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, a Trump appointee, said in his opinion that Wolf’s and Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine’s COVID-19 orders violated and continue to violate the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly and the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus “were undertaken with the good intention of addressing a public health emergency,” Stickman wrote. “But even in...

WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge: Florida has long followed the common practice of excluding those who commit serious crimes from voting. But in 2018, the people of Florida approved a historic amendment to their state constitution to restore the voting rights of thousands of convicted felons. They imposed only one condition: before regaining the right to vote, felons must complete all the terms of their criminal sentences, including imprisonment, probation, and payment of any fines, fees, costs, andrestitution.

Preet Bharara knew about FBI leaks two years before his office denied them. No one has been punished Preet Bharara is often mentioned as a possible U.S. attorney general in a Joe Biden administration after building a reputation as a hard-charging federal prosecutor and self-proclaimed ethicist teaching law school and dispensing morality on Twitter. But one of the last cases he handled as the chief federal prosecutor in New York City cuts against the grain of his carefully manicured image, exposing widespread leaking by the FBI — and knowledge of it by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office — during the...

The next president will likely solidify a lasting majority on the courts of appeals, either cementing President Trump’s judicial legacy or largely undoing it. Our nation’s courts are nearing a tipping point. During President Trump’s first term, he has achieved a slim conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court (5 of 9) and has evened the score in the critically important federal courts of appeals, which are the final stop for more than 99 percent of all federal appeals.Now, data compiled by the Article III Project (A3P) shows that the next president will likely solidify a lasting majority on the...

A federal judge on Friday ruled that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ effort to boost the amount of emergency pandemic relief that flows to private school students is illegal and struck down the policy. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that DeVos ran afoul of the CARES Act when she required public schools to send a greater share of pandemic assistance to private school students than is typically required under federal law.... But in her 13-page decision on Friday, Friedrich ruled that DeVos had it wrong, writing that “Congress expressed a clear and unambiguous preference...

A federal judge has issued a restraining order, temporarily barring Detroit police from using a range of response tactics—including tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons—against “peaceful protesters” after a group accused officers of excessive force, with the city’s police chief dismissing the decision, saying no such methods have been used on people protesting peacefully. U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Michelson partially granted a temporary restraining order filed on Aug. 31 by Detroit Will Breathe against the city of Detroit (pdf), accusing police of using brutal tactics to deter protesters from practicing their free speech rights. “Since May 29, 2020, Defendants...

Returning to numbers, on Inauguration Day, Republican-appointed majorities remained only in the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits, basically the middle of the country. While those majorities have grown and gotten younger, and more originalist, more interesting is how Trump and McConnell have been able to reverse the tide in the other nine circuits. For only the second time, the Senate confirmed double-digit circuit judges three years in a row. The Third Circuit, based in Philadelphia, was the first one to flip from Democratic-appointed majorities to Republican-appointed ones. Then in quick succession came the New York-based Second and the Atlanta-based...

On 28 August 2020, Attorney General Becerra of California petitioned the Ninth Circuit to review the case of Duncan v. Becerra. The review would be of the three-judge panel which held the California ban on magazines that hold over 10 rounds of ammunition to be unconstitutional. From the Petition for En Banc: 1 INTRODUCTION AND RULE 35 STATEMENTCalifornia respectfully petitions for rehearing en banc of the panel’s decision, which invalidates a state law restricting large-capacity magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition (LCMs). California voters adopted the current LCM law in response to a spate of mass...

A federal judge on Monday extended the deadline for absentee ballots to be returned in Georgia, ruling that they must be counted if postmarked by Election Day and delivered up to three days afterward. The decision will likely result in tens of thousands of ballots being counted after Nov. 3 that would have otherwise been rejected, enough to swing close elections. The ruling invalidates Georgia’s requirement that ballots had to be received at county election offices by 7 p.m. on Election Day. U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross wrote that voters must be protected during the coronavirus pandemic, when record numbers...

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge in Atlanta has ruled that the daughter of a married gay couple in Georgia who was born via surrogate in England has been an American citizen since birth, and ordered the State Department to issue a U.S. passport for her.

#Flynn Appeals court denies former National Security adviser @GenFlynn ’s effort to force a judge to immediately dismiss charges. 61 page opinion. ORDER attached.

A man who raped and strangled a 10-year-old Kansas girl in 1999 was executed this week, becoming the fifth federal inmate put to death this year. Keith Nelson received a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, after a higher court tossed out a previous ruling that the government was required to obtain a prescription for phentobarbital, the drug used to kill him. Questions about whether the drug caused pain prior to death had been a focus of appeals for Nelson, 45. He was the second inmate to be executed this week after the Trump administration resumed...

CHICAGO - A lawsuit over the planned Obama Presidential Center’s campus in Jackson Park has stalled after a federal appeals court panel ruled the plaintiffs did not suffer actual harm and that many of their grievances were not within the court’s jurisdiction. The 7th Circuit for the U.S. Court of Appeals issued the ruling on Friday, more than two years after community group Protect Our Parks Inc. filed suit alleging the Chicago Park District and the city of Chicago improperly transferred public park land to the Obama Foundation for private use. The decision to remand the case means the lawsuit...

A federal judge found the federal government should not be forced to stop construction on the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border in California despite claims human remains were bulldozed over. U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia, a Barack Obama appointee... hearing Thursday in a challenge brought by the La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians. The tribe claims President Donald Trump and the federal government have failed to meet tribal consultation requirements regarding border wall construction, which cuts through Kumeyaay land in San Diego... The tribe and the federal government are at odds over whether the type of notices, given...

Kolfage, a Purple Heart veteran who lost an arm and two legs in Iraq in 2004, was arrested at his home in Florida and is accused of being the main beneficiary of the scam, allegedly pocketing a staggering $350,000 of donor money while he and his wife flaunted their extravagant lifestyles on social media. Newly resurfaced footage of the pair taken on June 24, 2019 shows the two men openly laughing and joking about peddling money from the border wall scheme, more than a year before the feds swooped in. In the video, part of We Build The Wall's 'Wall-A-Thon'...

"Google was one of the three largest bundlers of contributions to President Obama. The year after the America Invents Act was passed, Google contributions were almost $1 million. Google spent $18 million on lobbyists. What did Google get for its money? A new, weaker patent system that allows challenges to patents outside of court, without a jury, without presumption of validity, using a low standard of proof. Google and friends killed the presumption that makes patents valuable. The expectations of patent owners that their rights would be enforceable against infringers.... "As the U.S. weakens its patent system, other countries are...

FBI Attorney Admits Altering Email Used for FISA Application During "Crossfire Hurricane" Investigation Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, 38, pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a false statement offense stemming from his altering of an email in connection with the submission of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) application, announced John H. Durham, Special Attorney to the Attorney General. Pursuant to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the guilty plea proceeding occurred via videoconference before U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg. According to court documents and statements made...

The U.S. Supreme Court has given the Trump administration another gigantic immigration victory. On Thursday, the nation’s highest court ruled 7-2 that the federal government can deport illegal aliens, including those seeking asylum, quickly and with only limited judicial review. The ruling could affect thousands of would-be immigrants now present in the United States. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with the Trump administration on the case. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan, both liberals, were the two dissenters. “In a decision in the case of Dept. of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, the court ruled that the Illegal Immigration Reform...