Free Republic

From the very beginning of his tenure at the White House, questions about how resident Biden’s Catholic faith square with most of his policy and personnel choices have been met with the response: “the President is a devout Catholic.” To paraphrase Inigo Montoya in the classic movie The Princess Bride: “You keep using that phrase, I do not think it means what you think it means.” Few personnel choices stand out for their record of hostility towards the Catholics more than Beth Robinson, Joe Biden’s nominee to be a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected efforts by four Democratic-leaning U.S. states to overturn former Republican President Donald Trump's decision to limit federal deductions on state and local taxes. In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the federal government had authority to impose a $10,000 cap on the state and local taxes that households' itemizing deductions could write off their federal returns. The decision is a defeat for New York, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, which challenged the so-called SALT cap implemented as part of a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul in 2017....

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at the A.R. Bernard-led Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn on September 26, 2021 An attorney for a conservative group argued in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan Wednesday that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has unfairly used God to encourage people to take COVID-19 vaccines as she argues there are no legitimate religious reasons to avoid taking them.On Thursday, a three-judge panel partly granted a motion by We The Patriots USA attorney Cameron Lee Atkinson on behalf of three clients who stated religious objections to taking the COVID-19 vaccine to...

A federal appeals court ruled Monday a COVID vaccine mandate for New York City teachers and other public school workers can go into effect. A three-judge panel lifted a temporary ban on the mandate that was originally set to take effect Monday. “Federal appeals exhausted. Done. The mandate moves forward,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. The United Federation of Teachers said 3% of teachers (about 3,400) remain unvaccinated. School workers now have until 5 p.m. Friday to get their first dose, or risk losing their jobs, de Blasio said. “If you have not gotten that first dose by Friday 5:00,...

A federal appeals court has slammed the brakes on the city’s mandate that all teachers and other school workers be vaccinated by Monday - but a reprieve for the holdouts may be short-lived. On Friday evening, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted a temporary injunction against the mandate, and sent the case to a three-judge panel for an “expedited review.” A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. “We’re confident our vaccine mandate will continue to be upheld once all the facts have been presented, because that is the level of protection our students and staff deserve,” said...

New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for teachers and other Department of Education staffers is on pause after a federal judge late Friday granted a request to temporarily block it. Plaintiffs, a group of teachers, asked for a temporary injunction pending review by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. U.S. Appeals Court Judge Joseph Bianco, a George W. Bush nominee, in a one-page order granted the request. The panel will now decide whether to impose an injunction pending appeal or allow the mandate to take effect. Rachel Maniscalco and three other New York...

"NEW YORK — New York City schools have been temporarily blocked from enforcing a vaccine mandate for its teachers and other workers by a federal appeals judge just days before it was to take effect. The worker mandate for the the nation’s largest school system was set to go into effect Monday. But late Friday, a judge for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary injunction and referred the case to a three-judge panel an an expedited basis."

A pair of Brooklyn-based far-left attorneys who firebombed the NYPD during last year’s deadly Black Lives Matter riots can still practice law in the State of New York, while former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani cannot, with his law license suspended for the crime of questioning the 2020 Presidential Election. Colinford Mattis, who works as a corporate lawyer, and his co-conspirator Urooj Rahman, a so-called human rights attorney, both face federal charges related to the firebombing of an NYPD police cruiser and could face sentences of at least 45 years in prison. Despite the extremely violent...

The Justice Department argued in a brief filed Monday that it should be permitted to substitute itself for former President Donald Trump as defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by a longtime magazine columnist, E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, continuing the argument it had initiated under the previous administration even as the White House has changed hands. "Then-President Trump's response to Ms. Carroll's serious allegations of sexual assault included statements that questioned her credibility in terms that were crude and disrespectful," Justice Department lawyers wrote in a brief to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals. "But...

Judge Carol Bagley Amon’s opinion exposed the deceit of abortion apologists and the symbiotic relationship between them and the New York attorney general’s office.On Friday, in a rare move, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals pulled a 100-plus page opinion it had issued in March against a group of pro-life protestors. The short three-sentence order in People of the State of New York v. Griepp—in which the court, without elaboration, granted rehearing of the case, vacated its previous opinion, and reinstated the district court’s decision—tells none of the bigger story of this continuing saga: a story of complicity between the...

On Thursday, a pastor who previously lived a homosexual lifestyle made his appeal in a unique case regarding discrimination and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which protects Big Tech companies from liability for the content third-parties post on their platforms. The pastor is suing Vimeo for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and religion after the platform banned him from publishing videos telling the stories of people who identify as ex-gay. “This is a case of grave importance because it is about whether big tech platforms can unlawfully discriminate against persons based on religion or sexual...

In Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, (2d Cir., Nov. 9, 2020), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision refused to grant an injunction pending appeal to a group of Jewish synagogues and to the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn in a case challenging New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's restrictions on spots in which clusters of COVD-19 cases have broken out. (See prior posting.) The majority said in part: The Court fully understands the impact the executive order has had on houses of worship throughout the affected zones. Nevertheless, the Appellants cannot clear the high bar necessary...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department cannot step in to shield President Donald Trump from a libel lawsuit filed by a woman who claims he raped her in a New York City department store more than 20 years ago. The Justice Department had sought to block the lawsuit, filed by former gossip columnist E. Jean Carroll, by arguing that the president was acting in his official capacity when he told White House reporters that she made up the rape story. Carroll sued, claiming that his statements branding her a liar damaged her...

WINDSOR TERRACE — A federal judge denied a request made by the Diocese of Brooklyn for a temporary restraining order to block Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing his new COVID-19 rules on houses of worship. Judge Eric Komitee’s decision, handed down late at night on Oct. 9 following a hearing that afternoon, means that the new restrictions Cuomo mandated can go into effect. The hearing took place one day after the diocese filed its lawsuit. While writing that the decision was a “difficult” one, Komitee sided with the governor. “Under Supreme Court precedent, the right to freely exercise one’s religion...

Devon Archer was convicted of defrauding the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of bond-sale proceeds. Hunter Biden was not implicated in the scheme, which defrauded the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of the proceeds of bond sales. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File/AP Photo A federal appeals court reinstated the fraud conviction of Hunter Biden’s former business partner on Wednesday, reversing a lower court judge who had granted his request for a retrial. Hunter Biden was not implicated in the scheme, which defrauded the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of the proceeds of bond sales. But the scheme was committed under...

Key Points A federal appeals court in Manhattan rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena that demands years of his income tax returns from his accountants. But court suspended enforcement of that subpoena by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., giving Trump time to ask the Supreme Court, for a second time, to step into the case and block the subpoena permanently. Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow said he will ask the Supreme Court to stay the unanimous decision against the president by the three-judge panel on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit....

The Trump administration will begin to retroactively apply its controversial "public charge" rule to immigrants, following a court decision that lifted a nationwide injunction on the policy. A notice posted on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website said the rule will apply to all future and pending green card applications and petitions postmarked or submitted electronically as of Feb. 24, 2020. The move to reimpose the rule comes after the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 11 overturned a nationwide injunction on the policy that had been imposed earlier in the summer because of the coronavirus pandemic....

On June 5, 2020, we reported that Appeals Court Orders Molotov Cocktail Lawyers Back to Jail: Two Brooklyn-based lawyers facing federal charges for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails into a NYPD cruiser during the riots are back in federal custody after an appeals court reversed the bail decision. That initial and temporary appeals court decision now has been reversed, with a panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, ordering the defendants released on bail and home confinement pending trial. ... ridiculous justification from the majority ... Judge Jon Newman wrote in Dissent: On the night of...

A New York judge ruled on Friday that a letter sent by Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred to the Yankees addressing the findings of a 2017 investigation into the team should be unsealed. MLB and the Yankees may submit a minimally redacted version of the letter “to protect the identity of the individuals mentioned” by noon ET on Monday, as part of the proceedings in a lawsuit brought against the league by daily fantasy sports contestants in the wake of the sign-stealing scandals in Houston and Boston. The Yankees argue the letter would cause “significant reputational injury,” Judge Jed...

Score one for former Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang. A federal appeals court on Tuesday agreed with a lower federal court judge’s ruling that the Democratic presidential primary contest must be included on the ballot when New York holds its primary on June 23. *snip* Sanders, the populist senator from Vermont, suspended his presidential campaign in April and endorsed presumptive nominee Joe Biden a week later. But Sanders pledged to keep his name on the ballot in all upcoming primaries and caucuses to accumulate as many delegates as possible at this summer’s convention.