Free Republic

If you’re tired of winning, you might want to stop reading because Donald Trump just racked up another victory as his contentious—to Democrats, anyway—pick to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit was confirmed by the Senate in a tight 50-49 vote Thursday night. Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the news: Congratulations to our dear friend Emil Bove on his confirmation to serve on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals! This is a GREAT day for our country. 🇺🇸 I cannot thank Emil enough for his tireless work and support at @TheJusticeDept. He...

The Senate on Tuesday night narrowly confirmed Justice Department official Emil Bove to a seat on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, hours after his confirmation was stalled over whistleblower reports that he is under investigation. Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey requested information about the alleged investigation after a third whistleblower said Bove misled the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing. The whistleblowers also allege Bove abused his authority while working for the Justice Department. The Senate confirmed Bove in a 50-49 split. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski...

A federal appeals court has ruled that New Jersey’s ban on private immigration detention contracts is unconstitutional, dealing a blow to state leaders and advocates who have long fought to curb U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's footprint in the Garden State. In the 2-1 decision, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals found that New Jersey’s 2021 law blocking ICE from contracting with private companies unlawfully interfered with federal immigration enforcement, in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause.

Over 100 organizations expressed support for President Biden’s judicial nominee, Adeel Mangi, and condemned “baseless attacks” against him. In a letter sent Tuesday, 125 national, state and local organizations urged senators to confirm Mangi to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. “Mr. Mangi is fair-minded, brilliant, and has shown throughout his impressive legal career a steadfast dedication to equal justice for all, and he will be a tremendous judge on the Third Circuit,” the letter reads. The letter features support from national organizations like AFL-CIO and Center for American Progress to state and local organizations like Make the Road Nevada...

President Biden’s "historic" nominee for a federal appellate court served on the board of a Muslim advocacy group that has blamed Israel for provoking Hamas’s terrorist attack and hosted an event with a convicted terrorist fundraiser on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Adeel Abdullah Mangi, Biden’s nominee for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, served on the advisory board of Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights from 2019 until earlier this year. During his time on the board, the think tank feted anti-Israel college students and marked the anniversary of the September 11 attacks with an event...

The U.S. government cannot ban people convicted of non-violent crimes from possessing guns, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The 11-4 ruling from the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest defeat for gun control laws in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year expanding gun rights nationwide. The decision stems from a 2020 lawsuit by a Pennsylvania man, Bryan Range, who was barred under federal law from possessing a gun after pleading guilty to welfare fraud. He claimed the prohibition violated his right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday invalidated a ruling by a lower court on a Pennsylvania case that involved the counting of undated mail-in ballots, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.The Supreme Court ruled on a decision that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made in May in a case involving the 2021 election of Judge Zachary Cohen, ordering the state to count 257 mail-in ballots that lacked a necessary date on the return envelope.The lower court ruled that the date requirement was "immaterial" and said there was no reason to exclude the ballots that had previously been set aside due...

Don’t you love it when this happens? Joe Biden’s nominee for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals failed to win Senate confirmation due to the absence of two Democrat senators. Senators Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) missed the vote. The confirmation of public defender Arianna Freeman to the appeals court failed by a vote of 47 to 50.One Republican senator was also absent, Todd Young from Indiana, but in the end that didn’t matter. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer voted “no” as a procedural move. It allows him to bring her nomination back to the floor at a...

In a significant win for supporters of Second Amendment rights, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted a preliminary injunction order to William Drummond and the Second Amendment Foundation, Inc. on October 13, 2021. Drummond had sought to open a sportsman’s club at an existing range that had operated as the Greater Pittsburgh Gun Club since the middle 1960s. It consists of 265 acres in Robinson Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania.In December of 2017, Drummond entered into a lease to operate the club. On February 19, 2018, the Robinson Township Board of Supervisors commenced proceedings to...

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Tuesday removed a hurdle to the construction of a natural-gas pipeline through Pennsylvania and New Jersey, ruling the pipeline developer could invoke the power of the federal government to take state property needed for the project. The court, in a 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, rejected New Jersey’s challenge to the actions of the PennEast Pipeline Co., a joint venture of several energy companies that aims to build a 116-mile interstate pipeline. Joining the chief justice were two fellow conservatives, Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, and two liberals, Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia...

Catholic League President Bill Donohue praised Thursday’s Supreme Court’s ruling in Fulton v. Philadelphia, calling it a “huge victory for religious liberty.” In its decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Catholic foster care agencies can reject gay couples when placing children for adoption. “This is a huge victory for religious liberty and a resounding defeat for LGBTQ activists,” Donohue said in his essay. The original case against Catholic foster care, in fact, did not stem from any complaints of discrimination but was the result of gay activists who “launched a contrived assault on the rights of Catholic social service...

The Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower court ruling that allowed the City of Philadelphia to ban Catholic Social Services from participating in the city's foster care program, saying the city violated the organization's First Amendment rights.

Kayleigh McEnany believes the Pennsylvania judge who rejected the Trump campaign’s latest election lawsuit didn’t understand its legal argument. “I think this 3rd Circuit Court judge misunderstood the argument because, look, it’s an equal protection argument.” McEnany: "Yeah, Jed, I think the third circuit court judge misunderstood the argument because look, it’s an equal protection argument, the one we’ve been making in court and it says that if you were in the seven blue counties in Pennsylvania, you were given an extraordinary opportunity to fix your mail-in ballot, but if you were in the other 60 mainly Republican counties you...

The president's campaign will continue pushing their legal fight toward the Supreme Court The Trump 2020 campaign's legal team suffered another blow in court on Friday, as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia rejected the attorneys' effort to contest the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania. Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel that reviewed the appeal, "Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here." Trump's attorneys have vowed...

Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here. The Trump Presidential Campaign asserts that Pennsylvania’s 2020 election was unfair. But as lawyer Rudolph Giuliani stressed, the Campaign “doesn’t plead fraud. . . . [T]his is not a fraud case.” Instead, it objects that Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State and some counties restricted poll watchers and let voters fix technical defects in their mail-in ballots. It offers nothing more. This case is not about whether...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday granted an expedited review for Team Trump’s appeal in Pennsylvania. The Trump team’s legal brief must be filed on or before 4:00 PM today. ( photo of docket via article link )

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday granted an expedited review for Team Trump’s appeal in Pennsylvania. The Trump team’s legal brief must be filed on or before 4:00 PM today. US District Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Matthew Brann on Saturday dismissed a Trump campaign lawsuit seeking to block Pennsylvania from certifying its election results. Judge Brann, an Obama appointee torched Trump’s legal team and accused them of asking the Court to “disenfranchise almost 7 million voters.” The Trump campaign argued the equal protection clause, however the Obama judge shot...

Third Circuit Court of Appeals grants expedited review for Team Trump’s appeal from Pennsylvania.

Please note 2 of the links in the body of this text no longer work. There should still be enough information for you to do additional research to verify or contradict. Following is the original text from my blog post of December, 2, 2012: In the Presidential election of 2012, I experienced the longest lines at early voting that I have ever seen. I read articles from different parts of the country reporting the same phenomenon. On election day there were excessive lines with many polling places required to stay open hours longer than normal to accommodate all of the...

A federal judge on Tuesday denied Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration’s request for a stay on a federal court decision that found some of the governor’s COVID-19 pandemic restrictions to be unconstitutional. The Wolf Administration sought the stay while appealing U.S. Western District Judge William Stickman IV’s order that was issued last week that ruled the governor’s closure of nonessential business, a stay-at-home order and an order to limit gathering sizes were unconstitutional. In denying the stay, Stickman said, “the public interest would be ill served if the court would grant the stay allowing the unconstitutional measures to remain in place.”...