Free Republic

Politics Alaska man charged with threatening to assassinate 6 Supreme Court justices By Melissa Quinn September 19, 2024 / 11:37 AM EDT / CBS News Washington — An Alaska man was arrested Wednesday for allegedly threatening to assassinate six members of the Supreme Court and harm two family members, the Justice Department said. Panos Anastasiou, 76, is accused of sending more than 465 messages to the Supreme Court through an online portal, which included violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric, according to court filings. Anastasiou allegedly threatened to assassinate, kidnap, torture, hang, behead and execute the justices, and encouraged other people...

During the presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, debate moderators curiously failed to include a question about efforts to “reform” the Supreme Court. The Biden administration is proposing radical changes to the Court, which include ending life tenure for justices and giving Congress the power to oversee the Court’s ethics. Others are calling to expand the size of the Court by adding more seats. Those proposals would destroy judicial independence and the rule of law. They’re a threat to Americans’ civil liberties. “Court packing would not simply alter the structure of the Supreme Court—it would...

Last February, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sent his eight Supreme Court colleagues a confidential memo that radiated frustration and certainty. Former President Donald J. Trump, seeking to retake the White House, had made a bold, last-ditch appeal to the justices. He wanted them to block his fast-approaching criminal trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that he was protected by presidential immunity. Whatever move the court made could have lasting consequences for the next election, the scope of presidential power and the court’s own battered reputation. The chief justice’s Feb. 22 memo, jump-starting the...

National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge Geoffrey Carter ordered Starbucks to reopen “within a reasonable period of time” two Ithaca locations that closed after employees formed a union, stating that its move to “chill unionism” violated the National Labor Relations Act. Carter ruled on Friday that the May 2023 permanent closures of the Ithaca Commons and Meadow Street Starbucks locations and failure to bargain with the union were unlawful, as the board found the stores were closed for “antiunion reasons” and in an effort to quell unionizations elsewhere. The NLRB similarly ordered on July 6, 2023, that the third...

TikTok and a group of creators on the popular short video app have tapped a pair of leading U.S. Supreme Court lawyers to battle the U.S. government over a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets or face a ban. Andrew Pincus of law firm Mayer Brown will argue against the controversial U.S. law for TikTok and ByteDance when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears arguments in their case on Sept 16. Jeffrey Fisher of Stanford Law School will advocate for content creators. They will face longtime appellate lawyer Daniel Tenny of the Justice...

Colt Gray was given the gun he used to shoot dead four people at his Georgia high school as a Christmas present from his father months after they were questioned by the FBI over alleged threats. The 14-year-old was arrested on Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, minutes after authorities say he opened fire on students and teachers. Law enforcement sources told CNN Thursday that the teenage shooter received the gun for the holidays this past December. His father Colin Gray has told authorities that he bought the gun for the boy himself as a Christmas gift. Colin Gray...

On Thursday, Judge Tanya Chutkan held a status conference to address the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling in Jack Smith’s January 6 case against Trump. Judge Chutkan came out swinging against the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, saying the upcoming election is “not relevant.” Chutkan did not issue a ruling, but she is expected to release a scheduling order as soon as Thursday evening. President Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith presented opposing arguments for how the January 6 case will proceed in a joint status report filed last Friday night ahead of Thursday’s status conference. Last Tuesday, Jack...

Back during the confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, the prospective Supreme Court Justice was asked to define the word 'woman'. She couldn't, claiming she's not a biologist. The media, of course, ran with that -- including this story from USA Today that said there's no 'simple answer' to what being a woman means. There is a very simple definition: adult female human. But we digress. We also congratulate Justice Brown Jackson on becoming a biologist, because she can now magically define 'woman': As the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says...

Washington CNN — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is using a new memoir published Tuesday to reflect on a personal journey that has already earned her a place in history. Jackson recalls sinking into her chair when she was an appeals court judge – her blood “a roaring ocean in my ears” – when President Joe Biden called in early 2022 to say he would nominate her to the high court, setting her on a path to become the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice.

Further evidence the gun prohibition lobby is frustrated by federal court rulings upholding the Second Amendment came Wednesday when the Everytown for Gun Safety “Action Fund” joined forces with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund to support federal legislation to create term limits for Supreme Court justices.The groups have thrown their support behind a bill introduced last year, H.R. 5566, known as the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act of 2023. The bill, not surprisingly, has gone nowhere in the U.S. House, which is controlled by as narrow Republican majority.In a prepared statement, Everytown President John Feinblatt asserted, “This...

A federal judge has ordered the release of a defendant convicted in the January 6 Capitol attack due to a Supreme Court ruling.The Supreme Court ruled in June that federal felony "obstruction of an official proceeding" charges are only valid if the government can prove that a defendant "impaired the availability or integrity" of documents or records rather than merely obstructing an official proceeding.Prosecutors had used the charge against hundreds of January 6 defendants under the assumption that it pertained to obstructing an official proceeding like the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress, which was stormed by a mob...

The Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to lift a sweeping block on President Joe Biden’s student loan repayment plan that aims to slash monthly payments and quicken the path to loan forgiveness. The high court turned down a request from the Biden administration to put the plan back in play after lower courts blocked it this summer in a legal challenge to the plan brought by GOP-led states. There were no noted dissents in the brief order

On Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision to not reinstate President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness plan. In a brief order, the High Court denied an emergency request filed by the Biden administration to lift a nationwide injunction on the plan that was put in place by a federal appeals court this year. BREAKING: The Supreme Court just ruled against Biden on his plan to unilaterally use tax dollars to cancel student loan debt ... Again pic.twitter.com/jzQsjzORZC — Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 28, 2024 According to several outlets, there were no noted dissents. The Saving...

The Supreme Court declined Wednesday to unblock President Joe Biden’s income-driven student loan repayment program. In a brief order, the Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s request to reinstate the program after it was paused by a federal appeals court. The Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, which lowers monthly loan payments based on income and creates a faster path to loan forgiveness, was challenged by a group of red states. “The Court expects that the Court of Appeals will render its decision with appropriate dispatch,” the Wednesday order states. The Biden administration argued the appeals court’s injunction “severely...

Federal courts across the country are handing back disparate rulings over federal and state gun laws despite nearly back-to-back Second Amendment cases at the Supreme Court that sought to clarify the scope of the right to bear arms. Although the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen held that gun regulations must align with the nation’s “history and tradition” of firearms laws and a separate case this summer called Rahimi v. U.S. upheld firearm prohibitions for domestic violence offenders, lower federal courts are still struggling to achieve consistency, as shown by...

Special counsel Jack Smith has charged former President Donald Trump in a superseding indictment in his federal election interference case. "Today, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment, ECF No. 226, charging the defendant with the same c, riminal offenses that were charged in the original indictment," a Justice Department spokesperson said Tuesday.

(Link Only due to copyright request.)

President and former Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden made clear his disdain for the current U.S. Supreme Court by proposing that justices have term limits and by imposing a “code of ethics” on its members. A plurality of Americans agree, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows, but the poll reveals a sharp political schism emerging over the issue. Depending on which party wins, the next Congress will decide whether the limits on the justices will go into effect or whether the plan gets deep-sixed. For the Supreme Court, the stakes will be high. In the national online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,488...

Democrats have made clear that if they win the presidency and Congress in November, they will attempt to take over the Supreme Court as well. Shortly after ending his re-election campaign, President Biden put forth a package of high-court “reforms,” including term limits and a “binding” ethics code designed to infringe on judicial authority. Kamala Harris quickly signed on, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear that bringing the justices to heel is a top priority. That increasingly muscular exercises of executive power have accompanied the left’s ascendance in the Democratic Party coalition is no coincidence. The legislative process...

Chuck Schumer is doing us a favor. Often, parties try to obscure or deny their radical plans prior to an election, but the Senate majority leader is being more candid. In a session with reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Schumer (D-NY) suggested that — should Democrats win the White House, Senate and House in November — he would seek to end the filibuster for purposes of passing voting rights and abortion legislation. This would be an inflection point in American government. There’s no nuking the legislative filibuster a little bit. The end run around the Senate’s long-standing requirement for...