Free Republic

A Utah lawyer has appealed a lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is not a "natural born citizen" and therefore ineligible to become president. Legal scholars say there is virtually no chance the high court will consider the appeal, partly because they do not want to encourage a wave of similar suits. Cruz has faced questions about his eligibility to become president from his chief rival, Donald Trump. Cruz was born in Canada, though his mother is a U.S. citizen. The U.S. Constitution sets only a few standards for presidential eligibility. Candidates...

Chelsea Clinton: Gun Control Opportunity on Supreme Court With Scalia Gone Chelsea Clinton said Thursday at an event in Maryland that there is now an opportunity for gun control legislation to pass the Supreme Court since Justice Antonin Scalia passed away. “It matters to me that my mom also recognizes the role the Supreme Court has when it comes to gun control. With Justice Scalia on the bench, one of the few areas where the Court actually had an inconsistent record relates to gun control,” Clinton said. “Sometimes the Court upheld local and state gun control measures as being compliant...

The left is masterful at rewriting history. Witness HBO's TV movie "Confirmation," which aired Saturday, about Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment 25 years ago, which almost derailed Clarence Thomas from becoming a Supreme Court justice. The drama's makers claim that they didn't take sides in depicting Thomas' Senate confirmation hearings, even as a trailer punctuates close-ups of actress Kerry Washington, who played Hill, with stentorian capital letters: "It only takes one voice ... to change history." Another trailer proclaims, "One woman made a choice ... to take a stand." Apparently, because HBO didn't expressly label Thomas as guilty, producers...

On a warm spring Monday in the nation’s capital, the future of American immigration policy and the limits on executive power were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit was filed by 26 states (led by Texas) against President Barack Obama’s administrative amnesty program, and based on the questions asked by the justices, this case may very likely come down to a four-to-four split vote. The states filed suit in December 2014 after President Obama announced his “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents” (DAPA) program in November. It would grant “lawful presence” — the meaning...

Just reported that Roberts supports Obama's immigration plan. Thanks to Bush and Cruz

A Supreme Court order issued today closes the book on (or perhaps merely ends this chapter of) more than a decade of legal warfare between Google and the Authors Guild over the legality of the former’s scanning without permission of millions of copyrighted books. And the final word is: it’s fair use. The order is just an item in a long list of other orders that appeared today, and adds nothing to the argument except the tacit approval of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals 2015 decision — itself approving an even earlier decision, that of the U.S. District Court...

The Supreme Court has only law to consider; therefore, it is not the prerogative of the court to decide on issues of moral justice. But its liberal jurists, who presumably have been informed of America's founding purpose, speak in an artificial language, freighting old words with new definitions that have sufficed to render morality a product of law. Can the term "vaccination," for instance, be expanded to mean "forced sterilization"? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said it could, at a time when progressive elites were promoting eugenics as a proper science (Buck v. Bell, 1927), and seven of the remaining justices...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prodded the Obama administration Monday to explain President Obama’s immigration flip-flop, when Mr. Obama in 2014 reversed himself and decided he did, after all, have powers to grant a tentative amnesty to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. Mr. Obama had repeatedly denied he had that kind of power, then after the 2014 election, when Congress refused to act on his policies, the president claimed a do-over and said he did have the power. Chief Justice Roberts wondered what changed in Mr. Obama’s mind, and even read back one of Mr. Obama’s quotes...

The Supreme Court on Monday seemed sharply divided during an extended argument over a challenge to President Obama’s plan that would shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work in the country legally. Much of the argument was technical, but the justices occasionally paused to acknowledge realities outside the courtroom. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the case had enormous political implications. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that about 11 million immigrants live “in the shadows.” “They’re here whether we want them or not,” Justice Sotomayor said. The case, brought by 26 states, may produce a significant ruling...

No matter which way the Supreme Court turns on President Obama’s ambitious move to overhaul immigration policy, it can get to a result only if a fifth vote can be found to make a majority among the eight Justices. That, at least, seemed likely after a ninety-minute argument on Monday in United States v. Texas, the fiercely contested courthouse battle between the White House and Congress over who among eleven-or-so million immigrants can stay in the country without a specific legal right to do so. The Court’s four liberal members were working extra hard to make the central issue whether...

The Supreme Court divided deeply Monday over President Obama’s deportation amnesty, with conservative justices saying the White House was trying to steal Congress’s law-making powers, and liberal justices suggesting the court should stay out of the fight altogether, leaving the president with a free hand. Outside the court, thousands of Hispanic-rights protesters rallied, demanding legal status from the courts and vowing political retribution on Congress — and Republicans in particular — if Mr. Obama loses his case. Inside the courtroom, however, the argument was lower-key, with the justices sparring with lawyers over the tricky interplay between the law, federal regulations...

The Conservative versus the Corporatist: Justice Rehnquist’s Opposition to Justice Powell’s Drive To Create “Corporate Speech” Rights September 3, 2014 Guest Post by Jeff Clements. The writer is the Co-Founder and Board Chair of Free Speech For People and the author of the 2014 updated and expanded edition of Corporations Are Not People: Reclaiming Democracy From Big Money and Global Corporations) In the November 2012 election, the same Montana voters who gave the State’s presidential electoral votes to Republican Mitt Romney by a wide margin also approved a ballot initiative that called for a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United...

The impassioned election-year debate over President Obama’s immigration executive actions lands Monday before a short-handed Supreme Court, where justices will consider a fundamental question: how much power does the president truly have? The justices plan to hold 90 minutes of oral arguments dealing with Obama’s bid to spare millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. A coalition of states calls it an executive power grab. "President Obama's executive action is an affront to our system of republican self-government," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who supports those states. But the White House contends the president’s authority is clear, and the policies humane...

Judicial Watch & Allied Educational Foundation to Supreme Court: Protect the Laws that Keep Public Officials Honest Defending the First Amendment against the Obama IRS Only 3 U.S. Airports Require Employee Security Checks JW Gets Props in The Wall Street JournalJudicial Watch & Allied Educational Foundation to Supreme Court: Protect the Laws that Keep Public Officials Honest With a notorious Democrat in the White House, it bears repeating that there are corrupt politicians in both the Republican and Democrat parties. The “corruption caucus” in the political world is both bipartisan and growing. True to our non-partisan educational mission, we...

As a general rule, one is typically on the wrong side of the issue if they are fighting against a group of nuns providing care for the elderly and poor. “One,” in this case, is unsurprisingly the Obama Administration. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The pending U.S. Supreme Court case Zubik v. Burwell involves the Catholic charity the Little Sister of the Poor and other religious organizations’ desire to not provide services in their health plans that violate their religious beliefs. Namely, this includes free access to contraceptive drugs, including some that may cause abortions.The Obama Administration claims that they include a workaround...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil lawsuit against Texas Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton and others on Monday, just one week to the day before the Texas AG will represent Texas and lead more than half the states in the nation at the U.S. Supreme Court in the executive amnesty case, the United States v. Texas. The federal government is appealing their loss in the lower district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Attorney General of Texas told Breitbart Texas, “That’s just creative timing by the Obama administration to file...

Merrick Brian Garland was born in Chicago. He earned his bachelor degree from Harvard and then taught there. He was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by Bill Clinton. He had problems with that nomination, and finally, in 1997, almost 2 years after nomination, he was finally confirmed. All this shows us right off the bat that this man is not and may never be a moderate or anywhere close to what Justice Scalia was. Garland sided with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and he was the lone dissenter when the rulings were...

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley told Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland to his face Tuesday that the Senate won’t consider his nomination. Over breakfast, the Iowa Republican “explained why the Senate won’t be moving forward during this hyper-partisan election year,” his office said. The statement added that Mr. Grassley “thanked Judge Garland for his service,” and that their 70-minute meeting in the Senate dining room was “cordial and pleasant.” Both men arrived early for the meeting and avoided journalists later. Mr. Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are blocking Judge Garland’s nomination, saying voters should have a role in...

With arguments before the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Texas ten days away, the docket in Brownsville keeps on chugging along. A few minutes ago, Judge Hannen issued an order, noting that “In the immediate future, this Court intends to issue an order concerning the misrepresentations made to it and Plaintiffs’ counsel by counsel for the Government.” But even stranger, the government submitted four envelopes to the court to review in camera, but asked the court not to open envelopes two and three. Defense counsel invited this Court to review the contents of Envelopes One (Government’s unredacted brief) and Four...

In 2009, when Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote her first opinion as a member of the high court, she used the term "undocumented immigrant" to refer to persons who are in the United States illegally. It is believed to have been the first such usage in the history of the court, where the term "illegal immigrant" had previously been used. In an interview for last week's NPR program Latino USA, Justice Sotomayor explained her decision. She told host Maria Hinojosa: "Illegal immigrant" has a sense, I think, in people's minds, that immigrants are all criminals and criminals in...