Free Republic

A federal appeals court is allowing the Trump White House to ban the Associated Press from the Oval Office and other restricted spaces for now in a ruling that blocked a lower court's ruling that claimed the ban was unconstitutional. In a 2-1 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted in part a stay of the lower court's April 8 ruling that declared the content-based ban unconstitutional. Both of the judges who ruled in the administration's favor were nominated by President Trump in his first term.

Here's your daily update from the Pacific Northwest 👇 Caleb "Haven" Wilvich is a man who likes to wear dresses. Imagine this guy strutting naked around women with the blessing of America's courts: Two years later, a U.S. federal court of appeals has upheld the lower court's ruling that the spa must allow this man to be naked around naked women on their premises. In his dissent, Trump-appointed Judge Kenneth Lee said this: Now, under edict from the state, women — and even girls as young as 13 years old — must be nude alongside patrons with exposed male genitalia...

The D.C. Circuit just issued a major ruling in favor of the Trump Administration that lifted a stay on the Administration's decision to terminate contracts and positions at Voice of America. The decision severely undercuts the arguments used by other district courts, particularly jurisdictional arguments. This is only the latest appellate decision pushing back on district court injunctions. However, the analysis will reach beyond the confines of this case.

The liberal DC Circuit Court of Appeals handed President Trump a massive win on Saturday after a district court judge ordered him to rehire staff from far-left Voice of America that will have impacts lasting beyond just this one case, according to a legal expert. As The Gateway Pundit reported, a federal judge last month ordered the Trump Administration to rehire Voice of America (VOA) and other affiliate news services staff. The affiliate staff included Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Network. In March, Trump placed employees and contractors for government-funded Voice of America on leave. US District...

Yet another crazy far left “judge” tried again to stop DOGE over USAID. Got overturned by Court of Appeals, Bottom line from Court of Appeals: DOGE does not run USAID, Department of State does through Secretary of State Marco Rubio. DOGE investigates and makes recommendations as advisors to Department of State for them to get rid of corrupt USAID employees etc.

A federal appeals court has ruled that a church cannot sue Washington state over a law that requires most employers to have healthcare insurance plans that cover abortions. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 last Thursday against a lawsuit brought by Cedar Park Assembly of God of Kirkland against former Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington Insurance Commissioner Myron Kreidler over Washington's Reproductive Parity Act. Circuit Judge Susan Graber, a Clinton appointee, authored the majority opinion, writing that the church lacked the standing to sue because "Washington's conscientious objection statute exempts employers like Plaintiff...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday stopped the federal government from destroying a fence of razor wire that Texas installed along the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from entering the country illegally. The ruling, criticized by activists, came hours before Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told President-elect Donald Trump that immigrants headed to the U.S. are being “taken care of” in her country. Texas had placed more than 29 miles of wire in the Eagle Pass area by last September when Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents’ alleged illegal destruction of state...

A federal appeals court has upheld an Indiana law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children under the age of 18, one of numerous such laws passed by Republican-controlled states. The 2-1 decision from the seventh US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday comes as the US supreme court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee, which may ultimately determine whether all such state laws around the country can be enforced. The seventh circuit had already allowed the law to take effect in February while it considered the challenge by families of...

On Thursday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that Steven Duarte, a felon, has a “right to possess a firearm for self-defense.” Courthouse News Service noted Duarte has five felony convictions and was a member of a street gang in Los Angeles. The decision upholding Duarte’s gun rights was split, with George W. Bush appointee Carlos Bea and Donald Trump appointee Lawrence VanDyke deciding in the majority. Bea wrote the majority opinion, noted the panel tested the prohibition against felons possessing guns in light of Bruen (2022) and found the government...

On March 11, 2024, Judge William Q. Hayes of the United States District Court, Southern District of California, granted a summary judgement in the case of Nguyen V. Bonta. The case is a challenge to California’s one gun a month law. Judge Hayes ruled the law violated the text of the Second Amendment and there were no reasonable analogies in the relevant legal history of the United States. Judge Hayes granted one month for an appeal to be filed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case was sent to a three judge panel of the Ninth...

Tennessee and Kentucky can continue to ban gender-affirming care for young transgender people while legal challenges against those state laws proceed, federal appeals judges ruled. In a 2-1 decision by a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel late Thursday, the majority wrote that elected lawmakers made “precise cost-benefit decisions” in instituting the bans and “did not trigger any reason for judges to second-guess them.” The laws were passed by Republican majorities in both states. “Prohibiting citizens and legislatures from offering their perspectives on high-stakes medical policies, in which compassion for the child points in both directions, is not something...

On Tuesday a 2-1 Democrat majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated a good West Virginia law protecting girls’ sports against invasion by male-bodied transgender students. The Richmond-based tribunal held that West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates the federal Title IX law, which was enacted to protect girls’ sports, and also that West Virginia’s protection of girls’ sports may further violate the Constitution. The Biden-appointed judge who wrote this absurd decision repeatedly used the propaganda term “sex assigned at birth,” as if sex were arbitrary and merely “assigned” to a newborn. On the contrary,...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The ruling comes amid a wave of anti-trans legislation cropping up across the country, as well as efforts to fight back against it. The ban in West Virginia was originally signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and introduced as the "Save Women's Sports Act." It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete's participation in...

Last week the US Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce its immigration law that allows police to arrest illegal aliens. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected an emergency application by the Biden Regime requesting the high court block Texas’ immigration law. The high court temporarily rejected the Biden Regime’s request as litigation made its way through the courts. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week temporarily suspended the immigration law after the Supreme Court rejected the emergency application. A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit in a 2-1 ruling Tuesday night rejected ‘invasion’ claims and issued a new block...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a gun rights group, saying Maryland's preliminary handgun-licensure requirement is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in favor of Maryland Shall Issue, which challenged the law, The Daily Record reported. The decision is a victory for gun rights advocates in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.

On the face of it, Friday’s decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ recently enacted ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines doesn’t change circumstances on the ground. The three-judge panel that issued today’s decision had previously stayed U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn’s injunction while the state appealed, so the law has been in effect throughout litigation. Still, the 2-1 decision does matter, both because it provides an opportunity for some or all of the plaintiffs to appeal on an emergency basis to the Supreme Court and because it will...

Nick Sandmann, who at the time was a Covington Catholic student, appears in a screengrab taken from a video filed as an exhibit in federal court. A federal appellate panel in a 2-1 decision Wednesday denied former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann’s bid to revive libel claims against mainstream media outlets over their coverage of his 2019 encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life. In July 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Jimmy Carter appointee sitting in the Eastern District of Kentucky, granted summary judgment and threw out Sandmann’s...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal ruling that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act could help block conservative political efforts to restrict access to gender-affirming care, advocates and experts say. A panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week became the first federal appellate court in the country to find that the 1990 landmark federal law protects transgender people who experience anguish and other symptoms as a result of the disparity between their assigned sex and their gender identity. The ruling could become a powerful tool to challenge legislation restricting access to medical...

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is denying defendants a constitutional right to a jury trial by putting them in front of its own internal judges. In a 2-1 ruling, the court ruled for George Jarkesy and Patriot28 LLC, who sued the SEC in 2011 after the agency imposed a $300,000 fine and other punishments in a securities fraud case. Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority opinion the SEC violated the Seventh Amendment constitutional right to a jury trial by bringing defendants before in-house judges and allowing the agency...

A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday the law violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms and a San Diego judge should have blocked what it called "an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles" for young adults.