Free Republic

True to his campaign promises, President Barack Hussein Obama has picked a rabid judicial activist as his first federal court pick. Judge David Hamilton has been chosen by Obama to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Hamilton is precisely what Obama wants in a judge: Someone who ignores the Constitution and imposes his own liberal ideas on each case. Hamilton will have what Obama calls “empathy” for the poor, child molesters, abortionists, murderers, etc. Hamilton has ideal liberal credentials. He is a former ACLU lawyer and was a fundraiser for the corrupt group known as...

The Am Law Daily was fascinated by the conclusion in "Freakonomics" that the huge drop in crime in the 1990s could be attributed to the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade. But there's a single paragraph in that discussion in which the book's co-author, Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago, discusses the possibility that laws allowing people to carry concealed weapons might be responsible, in part, for a drop in violent crime. The best-known proponent of that argument is a conservative scholar named John R. Lott, now at the University of Maryland, who wrote the book...

MADISON, WI (AP) -- Madison police did not violate the civil rights of a Monroe pastor when they told him to take his anti-homosexual banners off highway overpasses in 2003, a federal appeals court ruled. The ruling Monday by a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, upheld a December ruling by U.S. District Judge John Shabaz. That court said it was the spectacle and the traffic hazard the protest caused, rather than the message, that prompted Madison police to remove Ralph Ovadal, pastor of Pilgrims Covenant Church, and his group. The banners stating...

Indianapolis -- A General Motors program that allows Hispanics, blacks or lesbians — but not Christians — to organize in employee groups is not committing religious discrimination, a federal court ruled. GM's Affinity Group diversity program does not discriminate against Christians because it treats all religions equally, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled Thursday. The court upheld a decision by a federal judge in Indianapolis, where the original lawsuit was filed by John Moranski, a born-again Christian who works at GM's Allison Transmission plant in Indianapolis. Moranski applied in December 2002 to start an interdenominational Christian...

Indiana House of Representatives can't have clergy mention savior -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 29, 2005 2:50 p.m. Eastern -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com An Indian federal judge yesterday reaffirmed his decision to forbid prayers to be offered that use Jesus' name in the state House of Representatives. U.S. District Judge David Hamilton rejected a request by Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma to review the original Nov. 30 ruling. Bosma claimed the directive was too vague to enforce. Ruling on a suit brought by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, Hamilton said that "using Christ's name or title" or referring to a "savior" amounted...

7th Circuit orders SIU to reinstate CLS chapter's registered status CHICAGO - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit today ordered the Southern Illinois University School of Law to reinstate the registered status of the Christian Legal Society student organization while the appeal the chapter filed moves forward. Attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund and the Christian Legal Society represent the CLS chapter. "The 7th Circuit recognized that First Amendment rights apply to everyone," said CLS Chief Litigation Counsel Steven H. Aden. "We wanted the students in the CLS chapter to have their constitutional rights respected as this...

A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday Wisconsin prison officials violated an inmate's rights because they did not treat atheism as a religion. "Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being," the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said.

Judge Emilo Garza is the favorite, which means he's the likely pick, given the track record of TradeSports.com betters to accurately predict future events. The list includes 2 prominant judges not usually included in MSM speculation: Kozinski of the 9th Circuit (my personal favorite) and Easterbrook of the 7th Circuit. But they don't have great odds, so their inclusion merely indicates that they were picked for the list by the TradeSports.com staff.

Two members of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower level ruling Friday, allowing the religious text to have a spot with reprinted documents featuring constitutional preambles and national symbols. Judges declared the display is "secular ... a multifaceted historical exhibit of texts and images that ... cannot reasonably be understood as an endorsement of religion." No timetable has been set for returning the Commandments print to the main hall of the Administration Building on Second Street in Goshen. The Indiana Civil Liberties Union plans to petition the court for a rehearing in front of the entire court,...

MILWAUKEE, WI (Talon News) -- According to a number of Republican insiders and a prominent Milwaukee radio talk show host, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Diane Sykes is going to be President Bush's nominee for a vacant seat on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Mark Belling, Milwaukee's top talk show host and a regular fill-in for Rush Limbaugh's national radio show, revealed on his Monday afternoon talk show that his sources in the Republican Party confirmed the selection of Sykes. Sykes was one of four finalists recommended by the Federal Nominating Commission of the State Bar of...