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An election software company based in Michigan sued an election integrity watchdog group and its leaders last year for defamation over claims it had conspired with the Chinese Communist Party and subverted American elections. After months of denial and litigation, the company has withdrawn it suit. Konnech is an election software company based in Michigan. It licenses election software utilized by various municipalities and counties across America. TheBlaze previously reported that Eugene Yu, the founder and CEO of Konnech, was arrested on Oct. 4 and charged on suspicion of data theft, having allegedly stored "critical information that [U.S. election] workers...

The 5th Circuit noted that such orders can be issued without any credible evidence of a threat to others.The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a recent decision in which an appeals court concluded that the federal ban on gun possession by people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment. In a petition filed this month, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar portrays that law as a commonsensical precaution that is "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation"—the constitutional test that the Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v....

In the Fifth Circuit, the entire Court has ruled, en banc, that mere civil restraining orders may not infringe rights protected by the Second Amendment. The unconstitutional infringement was placed into law by the infamous Lautenberg Amendment in 1996. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been turned upside down and ruined by this infamous and unjust law. In the opinion published by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Circuit Judge James C. Ho writes a particularly well-argued and presented concurrence. The concurrence is worth reading. It is quoted below, without the footnotes:James C. Ho, Circuit Judge, concurring:The right to keep...

NEW ORLEANS — President Joe Biden’s order that federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19 was blocked Thursday by a federal appeals court. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected arguments that Biden, as the nation’s chief executive, has the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated. The ruling from the full appeals court, 16 full-time judges at the time the case was argued, reversed an earlier ruling by a three-judge 5th Circuit panel that had upheld the vaccination requirement. Judge Andrew Oldham, nominated to the court by then-President...

A federal judge appointed by former President Trump was ambushed by about 100 student protesters and a woke diversity dean who derailed his talk at Stanford Law School and accused him of causing “harm” to students. Tirien Steinbach, the school’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, subjected U.S. Circuit Judge S. Kyle Duncan to a lengthy harangue and made it clear to him his presence on campus was unwelcome, video of the event shows. “It’s uncomfortable to say this to you as a person. It’s uncomfortable to say that for many people here, your work has caused harm,” Steinbach...

The judge in the picture above in Kyle Duncan. He is a sitting judge on the 5th Circuit Cour of Appeals. The hideous creature on the right is Tirien Steinbach. She is the Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Stanford University (did you even know there was such a thing?) Duncan was invited by the Stanford Chapter of the Federalist Society to give a speech on guns, COVD mandates and Twitter. As he was to being speaking he was ambushed by the hideous creature who then spouted off about how terrible Duncan was. But she then launched into an...

Fifth circuit judge Kyle Duncan is calling on Stanford to axe DEI dean Tirien Steinbach ... Fifth Circuit appellate judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was shouted down by Stanford Law School students as administrators looked on in silence, says the protesters behaved like "dogshit." ... Duncan is calling on the school to discipline the students who disrupted his talk and to fire the school’s associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion, who stepped in during the event to chastise him and deliver what the judge described as a "bizarre therapy session from hell." Duncan’s remarks come after nearly a hundred...

Priscilla Villarreal's case will be heard again tomorrow at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. She has attracted some unlikely supporters.Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is most known for its work taking up controversial religious freedom cases. They famously defended Jack Phillips, a baker who was the subject of a high-profile suit after he declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. More recently, the organization argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Lorie Smith, a website designer who preemptively challenged a Colorado law so that she would not have to design wedding...

In what is likely to become a landmark case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an en banc decision of all the judges in the circuit, struck down the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule which changed the definition of a machinegun to include bump stocks. Thirteen judges were in the majority, with three judges dissenting. The case is Cargill v. Garland. This correspondent wrote about it previously. Here is a summation of how the sixteen judges ruled. From the opinion: Of the sixteen members of our court, thirteen of us agree...

Jan 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday struck down a rule the Trump administration had adopted following a 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that banned "bump stocks," devices that allow people to rapidly fire multiple rounds from semi-automatic guns. In a 13-3 decision, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that despite "tremendous" public pressure to impose a ban, it was up to the U.S. Congress rather than the president to take action.... "The resulting circuit split should bring this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court's attention promptly and supply a suitable vehicle for...

I reported earlier on some of the bombshells that the Missouri AG Andrew Bailey announced they’d discovered in the lawsuit against the Biden administration. The lawsuit, filed by the Missouri and Lousiana Attorneys General alleged the Biden administration had been colluding with Big Tech and social media to “suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content” on their platforms with “dis-information,” “mis-information” and “mal-information” labels.The Biden administration’s effort to squash speech extended to some pretty well-known names, including Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, and Tomi Lahren. But it was clear that members of the Executive Office of the President were regularly...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down a 13-3 decision Friday striking down the regulatory gun control that banned bump stocks under former President Donald Trump. Reuters reported that the court intimated that actions on guns should be taken by Congress rather than the executive branch. Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote the majority opinion for the Fifth Circuit and also opined that the framers of the bump stock ban did not provide “fair warning that possession of a non-mechanical bump stock is a crime.”

Rep. Mondaire Jones criticized GOP-appointed judges' abilities to issue nationwide injunctions. He referred to a Trump-appointed judge blocking student-debt relief for millions of Americans. His new bill would channel that authority to D.C. courts and the Supreme Court only. A Democratic lawmaker doesn't think conservative judges should have the power to halt Democratic policies for millions of Americans. Last week, New York Rep. Mondaire Jones penned an opinion piece criticizing Republican-appointed judges' "unrestrained use of nationwide injunctions" to block Democratic policies. For example, federal Texas Judge Mark Pittman — appointed by former President Donald Trump — ruled President Joe Biden's...

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by the Biden administration to reinstate its debt relief program. The three-judge panel consisted of an appointee from each of the last three presidents, according to Politico. The Biden administration was appealing to overturn the Nov. 10 decision by Fort Worth, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman...

BREAKING: Fifth Circuit vacates Biden student loan forgiveness program. Calls it an "unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power ..." Image UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS FORT WORTH DIVISION MYRA BROWN, ET AL., Plaintiffs, V. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, ET AL., Defendants. No. 4:22-ev-0908-P ORDER The Constitution vests "all legislative powers" in Congress. This power, however, can be delegated to the executive branch. But if the executive branch seeks to use that delegated power to create a law of vast economic and political significance, it must have clear congressional authorization. If not, the executive branch unconstitutionally...

A federal judge in Texas struck down President Biden's student loan handout in a Thursday night ruling. Biden's plan, which aims to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients in college and up to $10,000 for others who borrowed using federal student loans. "Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine. Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the...

Afederal appeals court in Louisiana has ordered the release of two leaders the election watchdog group True the Vote after they were detained for contempt of court late last month. A panel of three GOP-appointed judges for the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals late Sunday ordered group President Catherine Engelbrecht and one-time board member Gregg Phillips to be released, show court documents obtained Monday by Just the News. A spokesperson for True the Vote told The Epoch Times Engelbrecht and Phillips are expected to be released Monday, "when the paperwork is complete." The two leaders were sent to jail...

A court tossed out a regulation written by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for payday lenders last week, saying the agency's funding was unconstitutional and that it, therefore, lacked the ability to curb the industry. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voided a CFPB rule that prohibited payday lenders from debiting the accounts of customers who miss a payment without getting their consent first. While the ruling applied just to that regulation, financial service attorneys say it muddies the agency's authority and has the potential to upend all of its rules. "The Fifth Circuit's ruling potentially calls...

Three judges appointed by former President Donald Trump handed down an astonishing decision on Wednesday, effectively holding that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency charged with protecting consumers from a wide range of predatory activity by lenders and other financial services, is unconstitutional and must be stripped of its authority. The decision by the conservative United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit relies on a novel reading of an obscure provision of the Constitution, and is entirely at odds with a Supreme Court decision that rejects the Fifth Circuit’s reading of that provision. This is not...

President Biden lashed out at a federal appeals court on Wednesday, after it ruled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was illegally implemented by the Obama administration. In a statement, the president called the decision "unlawful" and urged Congress to make permanent legislative protections to help more than 600,000 immigrants currently protected by DACA. On Wednesday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court’s three-judge panel determined the Obama administration lacked the authority to institute the DACA program. However, the court stopped short of judicially dismantling it and said DACA migrants could continue to receive legal protections.