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The Supreme Court granted Tuesday a Trump administration request to continue to bar most refugees under its travel ban. Without comment, the court blocked a federal appeals court ruling from last week that would have exempted refugees who have a contractual commitment from resettlement organizations from the travel ban while the justices consider its legality. The ruling could impact roughly 24,000 people. The travel ban bars certain people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US.

Developing...

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to lift restrictions on President Trump’s travel ban. The Department of Justice on Monday asked the Supreme Court to stay the part of last week's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that barred the government from prohibiting refugees that have formal assurances from resettlement agencies or are in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program from entering the U.S. The 9th Circuit also said in its opinion that the government could not ban grandparents, aunts, uncles and other extended family members of a person in the U.S. from entering the country. But in his...

**snip**Supreme Court is slated to consider several blockbuster cases when it resumes next month. One of the most highly anticipated cases is Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which involves a Colorado bakery that refused to create a custom wedding cake for a gay couple.The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, engaged in sexual orientation discrimination under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) when he declined to design and create a custom cake honoring the same-sex marriage of David Mullins and Charlie Craig.

There are issues that have deeply divided President Donald Trump and conservatives during the first turbulent months since his inauguration. The judiciary is not one of them. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is a clean win. And lawyers inside and outside of the administration are working to vet potential conservative nominees, fill vacancies and ensure that the appellate bench is deep in case another Supreme Court vacancy arises. Amid tension, Trump and McConnell together on judges As such on Thursday, the President announced 16 more nominees -- including his own deputy White House counsel -- for lower court seats.

In a surprise move, the Trump administration on Thursday sided with a Colorado bakery whose owner is arguing to the Supreme Court that he should not need to bake a cake for a same-sex couple when their ceremony violates his religious beliefs. Colorado's public accommodation law bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, and its courts have ruled that means businesses catering to the public cannot discriminate against same-sex couples seeking services for weddings or other commitment ceremonies. Masterpiece Cakeshop, however, is run by Jack Phillips, a man who incorporates his Christian faith into the way he runs his business. Baking...

Democrat politicians — including former President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder — and liberal judges are working to rig the election system to put their cronies in power forever. In the United States, our Constitution leaves it up to we the people to decide how we draw our election maps. And — like so many other things written into that power-separating, government-limiting Constitution of ours — voices on the Left hate that fact with a burning passion. But now, there’s a multi-pronged effort by leftists to secure a permanent Dem majority under the guise of creating “fairer” districts...

A bakery in Bakersfield, Calif., is facing criticism for refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple who posted about the ordeal on Facebook Saturday. Eileen Del Rio said the bakery owner, Cathy Miller, refused to make her and her partner’s wedding cake because she doesn’t condone same sex marriages, The New York Daily News reported Monday. Del Rio did note in her post, however, that the baker offered to make up their order and send it off to another bakery for the wedding day.

Asked about his thoughts on the Second Amendment, Breyer recalled that in Article I of the Constitution "it gives to the Congress the power to call up and regulate state militias." "There was a lot of concern, if you read the Federalist Papers, you will just get a feeling for it. There was a lot of concern and fear that Congress might do that and disband them, and replace the state militias after they had disbanded them with a federal army. And that, many people said, vote no on the Constitution because if they can do that, then the federal...

At his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in March, then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch spoke to Sen. Richard Blumenthal with grave sincerity, saying, “Senator, the independence and integrity of the judiciary is in my bones.” To Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, he promised: “I do take seriously impartiality and the appearance of impartiality.” As the saying goes, however, actions speak louder than words. Now that Gorsuch has been confirmed to the Supreme Court, his actions are beginning to bring his commitment to integrity and impartiality into sharper focus: It was recently revealed that the justice has agreed to speak to a conservative group at...

Under the cover of night, a work crew removed the statue of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney — author of the infamous Dred Scott decision — from the grounds of the State House, ending the monument’s 145-year prominent perch in Annapolis. At 12:20 a.m. Friday, flatbed trucks with equipment including a large crane pulled onto the street encircling the State House. Workers cordoned off the front lawn of the historic building and placed straps around the statue, the latest monument linked to the Confederate era to be removed from a public square. Just before 2 a.m., the...

“Does a state violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause or Free Speech Clause when it punishes a judge who has discretionary authority to solemnize marriages because she states that her religious beliefs preclude her from performing a same-sex wedding?” That’s the question Judge Ruth Neely from Pinedale, Wyoming, wants the Supreme Court to answer. On August 4, she filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), asking them to review a March 7, 2017 ruling from the Wyoming Supreme Court. That ruling handed down a public censure and effectively removed her from a circuit court...

In the wake of a violent white supremacist rally in neighboring Virginia, House Speaker Michael E. Busch said Monday it’s time to take down Maryland’s most prominent Confederate-era monument. Busch said the statue of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney — author of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery and denied citizenship to black people — should no longer preside over the front lawn of the Maryland State House.“It certainly doesn’t belong there,” said Busch, an Anne Arundel County Democrat.“It's the appropriate time to remove it,” he said. Leaving it in place after white supremacists...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says the Trump administration can strictly enforce its ban on refugees, but is leaving in place a weakened travel ban that includes grandparents among relatives who can help visitors from six mostly Muslim countries get into the U.S. The justices acted Wednesday on the administration’s appeal of a federal judge’s ruling last week. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson ordered the government to allow in refugees formally working with a resettlement agency in the United States. Watson also vastly expanded the family relations that refugees and visitors can use to get into the country.

BREAKING: Supreme Court says Trump administration can enforce refugee ban for now.

The Government’s motion seeking clarification of our order of June 26, 2017, is denied. The District Court order modifying the preliminary injunction with respect to refugees covered by a formal assurance is stayed pending resolution of the Government’s appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch would have stayed the District Court order in its entirety.

EXCLUSIVE: Felicity Jones will star as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis Of Sex, with Mimi Leder set to direct for Focus Features and Participant Media. The film will shoot in Montreal in September. The drama follows the travails of Ginsburg as she faced numerous obstacles to her fight for equal rights throughout her career. Daniel Stiepleman wrote the script, which made the 2014 Black List. Robert W. Cort is producing with Ram Bergman exec producing. Ginsberg was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton, becoming only the second female justice (after...

Lawyers for the state of Hawaii and other challengers to President Trump's executive order argued to the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the current phase of that dispute should play out first in a lower appeals court. The variety of Supreme Court actions that the Trump Administration has sought are either outside of normal procedures or are unnecessary, the new filing contended. Administration lawyers moved late last week to get the Supreme Court itself to clarify what it meant on June 26 in narrowing the government's power to impose a sweeping exclusion of foreign nationals from Muslim-majority nations and of...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4705146/Trump-s-travel-ban-diluted-State-Department-again.html

(Photo: ADF/Screengrab)Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington, speaks as supporters rally around her in November 2016.Barronelle Stutzman, also known as the "Christian grandmpa florist," is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her appeal to reverse a Washington court's decision earlier this year that found her guilty of discrimination for refusing to provide flowers for a gay wedding.The Associated Press reported on Sunday that lawyers for Stutzman are claiming that Washington's high court violated her First Amendment protection for artistic expression in its ruling in February.Alliance Defending Freedom positioned in a post on Friday that Stutzman is taking...