Free Republic

Muslim and Jewish groups have filed a legal brief expressing concern about a Michigan law that might be used to force a Christian healthcare provider to hire people outside of their faith. Christian Healthcare Centers, Inc., a network of Christian medical professionals based in Grand Rapids that sued Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and other officials last year, is appealing a lower court decision against them.The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute filed a brief last week that, while not in favor of either party in the lawsuit,...

Score another victory for religious freedom! A federal judge issued a ruling in favor of a farmer in East Lansing, Michigan, who was excluded from a public farmer's market because of his Christian beliefs. It turns out that at least some government officials see that the city's rotten actions are violating civil liberties in the name of diversity.The conflict started in 2017 when the city's government decided that the biggest drama in the farmer's market wasn't the price of tomatoes but the fact that Stephen Tennes, owner of Country Mill Farms, has religious beliefs that the city deemed unacceptable. The...

DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan attorney general said Friday there’s “clear evidence” to pursue charges against pro-Donald Trump Republicans who claimed they were the state’s presidential electors in 2020, despite Democrat Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory. Dana Nessel referred the matter to federal prosecutors last year, but no public action has been taken. A year later, she said it’s time for state authorities to step in. “Let’s be fair about what this was: It was an effort to overturn a lawful election,” Nessel, a Democrat, said. “That type of activity can’t go without any consequences. ... There are laws that specifically...

@julie_kelly2 Judge: “This is what law enforcement is supposed to do. I don’t see anything on the entrapment front. In my mind, law enforcement deserves a pat on the back.” He claimed the FBI informants “pulled the plug early” and commended the agency for its “careful monitoring.” 🙄 This same judge has aided DOJ in this bogus case from the start, denying defense motions to present damning evidence at trial and refusing to compel testimony from FBI informants, agents for defense. His conduct in retrial was a disgrace

... At least a dozen FBI informants working with FBI handlers and undercover agents out of numerous FBI field offices engineered the hoax in 2020. Dan Chappel, a contract truck driver for the Postal Service, was hired as the key informant in March 2020; he primarily led the effort to stitch the random group of outliers together. The FBI compensated Chappel roughly $60,000 in cash and personal items, a sum Chappel admitted at trial had exceeded his annual salary. Chappel particularly fixated on Fox, who lived alone at the time in the dilapidated cellar of a vacuum repair shop without...

A federal district court judge in Michigan on Thursday denied Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s efforts to dismiss a lawsuit against her office for failing to remove deceased registrants from the state’s voter rolls. In November, the Public Interest Legal Foundation filed the suit, claiming their analysis determined 25,975 dead Michiganders were registered to vote as of August 2021. Of those, 23,663 had been dead for five or more years, while 17,479 had been dead for more than a decade and 3,596 had been dead for at least 20 years.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has failed to convince a judge to dismiss a case that could force the state to remove 25,975 deceased people from its voter rolls. Benson moved for dismissal of a case brought against her in November 2021 by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) for her failure to clean up the state’s voter registration rolls—in an alleged violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. On Aug. 25, Benson’s motion to dismiss the case was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. The court also...

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The alleged masterminds of an extremist plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war ahead of the 2020 presidential election will be re-tried after a jury failed to reach a verdict in their cases earlier this year. A federal judge set a trial date in August for Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. Thursday after declining their lawyer’s request to clear them of conspiracy and weapons charges. “We don’t know what the jury was thinking. … There’s enough here to say that a rational jury could still go against Mr. Fox, go against Mr. Croft, even...

The defense team for the “radical extremists” who are being accused of participating in a plot to kidnap Michigan’s unpopular Governor Gretchen Whitmer are calling on the judge to throw out the case against their clients. The 20-page motion, filed Christmas night by all five defense lawyers, asks U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker to dismiss the conspiracy charge. The move would effectively dismantle the government’s case and remaining charges, which are intertwined and based on the conspiracy charge, the lawyers wrote. “Essentially, the evidence here demonstrates egregious overreaching by the government’s agents, and by the informants those agents handled,” defense...

University permanently barred from enforcing vaccine mandate and will have to pay legal fees of four female, Christian student-athletes.Western Michigan University is permanently barred from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate against student athletes and will pay nearly $35,000 in legal fees under a consent judgment issued Nov. 16 by U.S. District Judge Paul L. Maloney in Kalamazoo, Mich. Under an agreement signed by attorneys for the athletes and the university, Western Michigan agreed that the preliminary injunction upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit will be made permanent, ending the lawsuit brought Aug. 30 by two...

A federal court has sided with college athletes seeking a religious exemption from a university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, preventing the school from enforcing the mandate against the plaintiffs. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with a group of 16 student-athletes at Western Michigan University, upholding a lower court decision finding that the school violated their First Amendment rights by denying their requests for religious exemptions from the requirement that all student-athletes take the coronavirus vaccine. The decision noted that “in some cases, the university denied the student-athlete’s application” for a religious exemption...

Sixteen unvaccinated athletes won another round in their legal battle to play sports, despite Western Michigan University’s mandate that all of its inter-collegiate athletes get the COVID-19 vaccination shot. In a unanimous published decision issued Oct. 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, held that the university violated the athletes’ First Amendment rights. All 16 athletes had filed for religious exemptions, which, according to the court, the university “ignored or denied.” The court stated: “The university put plaintiffs to the choice: Get vaccinated, or stop fully participating in intercollegiate sports. By conditioning the privilege...

A federal judge has denied that natural immunity from prior Covid-19 infection is a legally justifiable reason to be exempted from vaccine mandates. The judge’s ruling on a plaintiff’s case against Michigan State University comes as even mainstream media outlets admit that natural immunity is not only at least equivalent, but is actually superior to vaccinated immunity.The court’s ruling was reported by the Epoch Times on Sunday:An employee at the school, Jeanna Norris, filed a lawsuit against the mandate and asked a judge to intervene on the basis that she had already contracted COVID-19 and recovered. She presented two antibody...

A federal judge on Oct. 8 denied a request to block Michigan State University’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on the basis of natural immunity. An employee at the school, Jeanna Norris, filed a lawsuit against the mandate and asked a judge to intervene on the basis that she had already contracted COVID-19 and recovered. She presented two antibody tests showing her previous infection, and her doctors told her that she didn’t need to get the vaccine at this time. Despite her natural immunity, Norris faces termination from the university for not complying with the school’s mandate that all students and staff...

A federal judge on Tuesday issued a temporary injunction stopping Western University from mandating Covid vaccines for athletes. US District Judge Paul Maloney, a George W. Bush appointee, put a 14-day pause on the university’s vaccine mandate for athletes, but denied the request to halt the mandate from one of the school’s employees who claimed they had natural immunity. The injunction was in response to a lawsuit filed by seniors on the women’s university soccer team. The athletes argued Western Michigan University’s vaccine mandate “seeks to override” their “sincerely held religious beliefs and viewpoint and discriminates against them on the...

DETROIT (AP) — A Catholic school in Lansing has lost an appeal over a Michigan policy that required masks on young kids earlier in the pandemic. Although the statewide mandate ended, some counties are stepping in and requiring masks in schools when the 2021-22 year starts. Resurrection School and some parents sued in 2020, saying a state mask order violated the free exercise of religion, among other objections. A judge, however, refused to intervene and issue an injunction. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision Monday.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A man upset over state-ordered coronavirus restrictions was sentenced to just over six years in prison Wednesday for planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a significant break that reflected his quick decision to cooperate and help agents build cases against others. Ty Garbin admitted his role in the alleged scheme weeks after his arrest last fall. He is among six men charged in federal court but the only one to plead guilty so far. It was a key victory for prosecutors as they try to prove an astonishing plot against the rest. Garbin apologized...

The owners of Country Mill Farms in Michigan, who were banned from their local farmers market in 2016 over their biblical viewpoint on marriage, are having their case heard in a federal court this week. Steve and Bridget Tennes operate their orchard in Charlotte, and they host weddings on their farm. The Christian family used to set up a booth at the East Lansing Farmer's Market to sell their produce, but officials decided to punish them because they believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) say city officials in East Lansing have...

A company that owns several refineries in the eastern United States broke down the economic catastrophe that would unfold if Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) successfully kills a crude oil pipeline that has been in operation for over 50 years. Whitmer has ordered Enbridge to cease operating Line 5 by May 12, a pipeline that runs from Canada through Michigan. The company refused to comply with Whitmer’s demand. She has threatened to seize the company’s profits and claimed the pipeline is now “trespassing” on state property in the Straits of Mackinac. Energy, told Breitbart News the fallout from Whitmer’s attempt...