Free Republic

The left has beenÂ… animated in their objections to the Supreme CourtÂ’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case which declared the mandate in the Affordable Care Act which forced employers to provide employees with abortifacients drugs over their religious objections to be unconstitutional. In spite of what many have characterized as the narrow and tailored ruling by the Court, some political and legal observers have determined that the ruling is a step toward the legalization of discrimination. One of the more creative arguments in this direction was submitted by NPRÂ’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. On Monday, she suggested...

I don’t mean to be (entirely) dismissive… But does Sandra Fluke actually still matter to anyone? I mean, you would think that even Democrats might eventually grow tired of listening to a 30-something year old college student whine about wanting free birth-control. But, I guess you would be wrong. Sandra is at it again, ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Hobby Lobby case. Hobby Lobby has been fighting for the religious liberty of its owners before the Supreme Court. Today, SCOTUS is expected to release its ruling on the matter – determining whether or not the Obamacare contraception...

The Supreme Court says public sector unions can't collect fees from home health care workers who object to being affiliated with a union. The justices on Monday said collecting the fees violates the First Amendment rights of workers who are not union members....

CBS news contributor Nancy Giles wants to sue Congress. Why? For going to bed instead of taking president Obama’s “touchdown dance” call on the night of his 2012 reelection victory. But it also sheds light on the media strategy that will be used in 2014 to bolster the president. In a nutshell that strategy is known as the “I’m-Rubber-You’re-Glue-Whatever-You-Say-Bounces-Off-of-Me-and-Sticks-to-You,” campaign narrative first used in 1973 by 3rd grader Amelia Snodgrass of Temple Mount, NJ as she swept into her second class presidency in three years. Accordingly in her Sunday column CNN’s Giles gets childlike in her complains that Speaker John...

"We believe that Americans don't lose their religious freedom when they open a family business," said Barbara Green, who owns Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby has over 500 stores with more than 15,000 employees. The company covers 16 types of contraception. But the owners object to including four types, versions of the morning after pills and IUD's, because they consider them to be a form of abortion. The Obama administration and supporters of the health care law. Argue that a woman should be able to decide the type of contraception she uses, not her boss.

The Roberts Court certainly seems like a conservative juggernaut. And, yes, from campaign finance to race to religion, it has moved the law dramatically to the right. But Wednesday's Supreme Court decision on cell-phone privacy shows that this isn't the entire story. In a number of significant areas of law, a majority of the Roberts Court will line up behind rulings that are not so much conservative as libertarian, often with a surprisingly progressive bent. That is certainly true of Riley v. California, in which Chief Justice John Roberts, on behalf of his unanimous colleagues, concluded Wednesday that police may...

Three cheers for right-wing obstructionism. Can we have more, please, and louder? This week's unanimous Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's illegal recess appointments is a double smackdown. First, it's a rebuke against arrogant White House power-grabbers who thought they could act with absolute impunity and interminable immunity. Second, the ruling is a reproach of all the establishment pushovers on Capitol Hill who put comity above constitutional principle. In a nutshell: The high court determined that Obama lawlessly exceeded his executive authority when he foisted three members onto the National Labor Relations Board in 2012, during what Democrats declared was...

The Supreme Court today unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that required a 35-foot protest-free "buffer zone" around abortion clinics, saying that the statute violated the First Amendment rights of pro-life protestors. The ruling in McCullen v. Coakley also has implications for municipalities that have imposed their own "buffer zone" laws around abortion clinics. The 2007 law aimed to keep protesters least 35 feet from the entrances of abortion clinics to prevent confrontations, but the US Supreme Court ruled that it went too far and prevented the free speech of law-abiding abortion opponents who want to approach people going to...

(Regarding Cellphones) The Supreme Court has handed down a unanimous decision in Riley v. California, and it's good news for digital privacy advocates. The Court decided that once someone is arrested, the police may not search the person's phone without a warrant. The ruling stated that "the term 'cell phone' is often misleading in shorthand; many of these devices are in fact miniature computers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers." Before just...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has limited a president's power to make temporary appointments to fill high-level government jobs. The court said Thursday that President Barack Obama exceeded his authority when he invoked the Constitution's provision on recess appointments to fill slots on the National Labor Relations Board in 2012.

In a 2-to-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Kitchen v. Hebert affirmed a lower court’s ruling holding that traditional marriage laws violate the Constitution. The case will likely soon go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Breitbart News examined this case last year when an Obama-appointed federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah invalidated that state’s law providing that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, comparing such laws to racism and saying they are literally irrational. Despite the fact that neither marriage nor homosexuality is mentioned...

The Supreme Court ruling on Aereo is out, and the court has ruled against the upstart company and in favor of TV broadcasters. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that had ruled in favor of Aero, a service that lets you stream live network TV. The court found that Aereo's service violated the copyrights of live network TV stations. "This ruling appears sweeping and definitive, determining that Aereo is illegal," the lawyer Tom Goldstein wrote on SCOTUSBlog. The case will have lasting implications for the way content is delivered online. Aereo's technology uses special...

The EPA cannot require that power plants and other facilities seek building or operating permits based solely on the fact of their greenhouse gas emissions, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today. But it ruled 7-2 that any plant (or other stationary source) that already emits impermissibly high levels of other, traditional pollutants can be required to also obtain permits related to greenhouse gas emissions. The ruling does not affect President Obama’s latest proposed rules for greenhouse gas emissions that would require states to reduce their total emissions by 30 percent. Those rules are still in draft form and are subject...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia takes part in an interview with Chris Wallace on "FOX News Sunday" at the FOX News D.C. Bureau on July 27, 2012 in Washington, DC. Although the Supreme Court declined today to hear a case about religious freedom, it reminded Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented, about his feelings regarding music and joy and community. Religion, some people believe, "is a personal matter," he wrote. "[I]f it must be given external manifestation, that should not occur in public places where others may be offended." Just like that dreadful rock and roll: I can understand that...

A divided Supreme Court sided with gun control groups and the Obama administration Monday, ruling that the federal ban on "straw" purchases of guns can be enforced even if the ultimate buyer is legally allowed to own a gun. The justices ruled 5-4 that the law applied to a Virginia man who bought a gun with the intention of transferring it to a relative in Pennsylvania who was not prohibited from owning firearms.

Are people who assert their Second Amendment rights by bringing rifles and shotguns into stores and restaurants "weird" and "scary?" At least one staff member at the National Rifle Association (NRA) thought so, and he expressed that view in an online commentary that the organization felt compelled to retract last week after it caused an uproar among gun-rights advocates. To some extent, the episode reflects divisions among Second Amendment activists, many of whom view the NRA, despite its reputation for adamantly resisting gun control, as insufficiently zealous. But the brouhaha also highlights a shift in American attitudes regarding the public...

A rather wonky interstate commerce case has been granted a writ of certiorari and will be heard by the Supreme Court during the fall session. The reason this particular petition should interest you is that it has the potential to affect so many people, specifically those who derive income from any sources outside the state where they live. As explained in this Forbes article, the fundamental question being put to the court is as follows:Does the United States Constitution prohibit a state from taxing all the income of its residents — wherever earned — by mandating a credit for...

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” —Martin Niemoller Despite what some may think, the Constitution is no magical incantation against government wrongdoing. Indeed, it’s only as effective as those who abide by it. However, without courts willing to uphold...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has been quietly revising its decisions years after they were issued, altering the law of the land without public notice. The revisions include “truly substantive changes in factual statements and legal reasoning,” said Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard and the author of a new study examining the phenomenon.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously smacked down the Illinois Supreme Court in President Barack Obama’s home state for violating the Fifth Amendment. Almost always the Supreme Court chooses to take a case (called granting a writ of certiorari) from a federal appeals court or a state supreme court by setting the case for briefing and argument. The Court receives 8,000 petitions for certiorari per year, and it grants fewer than 80.Yet in this case of Martinez v. Illinois, the justices took the very rare step of deciding the whole case just based on the petition filed with them requesting review. The...