Free Republic

NEW: Leonard Leo is STILL sneaking Never Trumpers into the judiciary. Just last week, 4 nominees for the 8th Circuit Eastern District of Missouri had their judiciary committee hearing, and it’s SO bad. Every single one of the nominees agreed with Sen. Durbin that President Trump must follow the orders of radical judges who issue nationwide orders halting deportations of criminal aliens to places like El Salvador and Venezuela. Even worse, one nominee, Maria Lanahan, is married to Michael Lanahan, who worked for the Club for Growth—an organization that spent millions of dollars AGAINST Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries....

[Caption] The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S. on March 5, 2025. Wall Street’s top regulator said on Thursday it had voted to cease legal efforts to defend regulations that require companies to disclose climate-related emissions, risks and spending, and had been hotly contested by industrial lobby groups. The decision by the Republican-dominated U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had been widely expected following public remarks last month by its acting chairman, Mark Uyeda. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has acted to roll back virtually all of the prior administration’s efforts to address climate change....

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals put a final end to former President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan on Tuesday. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey originally sued the Biden administration over its $500 million effort to wipe away student loans, known as the SAVE plan. The court's Tuesday ruling found that Biden's secretary of education had "gone well beyond this authority by designing a plan where loans are largely forgiven rather than repaid." Bailey noted in a statement that the ruling has no active impact beyond blocking future presidents from attempting Biden's maneuver. "Though Joe Biden is out...

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration’s student loan relief plan known as SAVE, a move that will likely lead to higher monthly payments for millions of borrowers. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the seven Republican-led states that filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education’s plan. The states had argued that former President Joe Biden lacked the authority to establish the student loan relief plan. The GOP states argued that Biden, with SAVE, was essentially trying to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the Supreme Court blocked his...

The courts keep slapping down Biden Administration lawbreaking, not that the Harris or Trump campaigns seem to notice. An Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Friday blocked President Biden’s SAVE student loan forgiveness plan and rapped the Administration for canceling debt in defiance of a lower-court order. The Administration rolled out the SAVE plan last summer after the Supreme Court blocked its gambit to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 for each borrower. The new plans cap monthly payments at 5% of discretionary income—defined as exceeding 225% of the poverty level—and cancel remaining balances after 10 to 20 years. Borrowers don’t...

On August 9, 2024, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court on a case in which numerous states and private parties challenged the ATF’s “pistol-brace” regulatory decision which attempted to reclassify items that it had previously approved as non-NFA “pistols” to NFA short barrel rifles. See, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Inc., et al v. Merrick Garland, et al, No. 23-3230 (8th Cir. August 9, 2024). The district court denied the request by the Plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction when the court concluded that the Plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits – that is, the trial...

* The 8th Circuit officially blocked the SAVE student-loan repayment plan in its entirety. * It replaces its temporary stay on the plan from July, which paused cheaper payments and debt relief. * Enrolled borrowers will likely be in limbo for long as the legal process progresses.

A three-judge panel in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has unanimously struck down a Minnesota law that forbids the exercise of rights protected by the Second Amendment for people over 18 but less than 21 years old. The decision is a significant victory in the ongoing process of restoring rights protected by the Second Amendment. Multiple infringements have piled up over the last century.The particular infringements on the right to bear arms in Minnesota started in 1975. In 1975, the Minnesota legislature passed a sweeping gun control law that forbid anyone from carrying handguns in...

A federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily blocked a key Biden administration student loan forgiveness and repayment plan. The order could have significant ramifications for millions of borrowers.. Joe Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education plan is a new income-driven repayment program designed to provide affordable payments and multiple pathways to loan forgiveness. The Education Department unveiled the SAVE plan last year, and began implementing the program in phases. But several groups of Republican-led states filed two separate legal challenges this spring, arguing that the Biden administration exceeded the authority Congress provided. Thursday’s appeals court ruling is just the latest...

A federal court dismissed a case Tuesday against Republican Iowa Gov. Kimberly Reynolds’ prohibition of mask mandate in school districts across the state, official documents showed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found “persuasive” the argument that “the general risks associated with COVID-19, even though COVID-19 remains an ever-present concern in society, are not enough to show ‘imminent and substantial’ harm,” court papers showed in part. The court also decided that “because Plaintiffs have only alleged the potential risk of severe illness should they contract COVID-19 at school, the risk of harm is too speculative to satisfy...

Fifty-six years after it exempted antiwar teenagers from First Amendment protections while on campus, a federal appeals court in America's heartland affirmed students' speech rights in public schools on an equally contentious subject today. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction Monday against an Iowa school district policy that threatens suspension and expulsion for "intentional and/or persistent refusal … to respect" a peer's gender identity, finding it's likely too vague to survive legal scrutiny. "A school district cannot avoid the strictures of the First Amendment simply by defining certain speech as 'bullying' or 'harassment'"...

An Eighth Circuit Court panel of judges unanimously ruled Friday that an Iowa school district’s policy requiring students and staff to “respect” their classmates’ gender identity was “unconstitutionally vague,” according to the court documents. Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a lawsuit against Linn Mar Community School District in August 2022 over a policy that would hide student’s “gender support plans” from their parents and required both staff and students to “respect” someone’s gender identity. The court determined that the district’s policy was “unconstitutionally vague” and decided to grant a preliminary injunction, temporarily halting the enforcement of the policy, according to...

A win for Geraldine Tyler, who is now 94 years old, would be a win for property rights.The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a consequential case. The query before the justices: Was it unconstitutional when the government seized a woman's home over an unpaid tax bill, sold it for more than the amount of the debt, and then kept the profit? It may sound like a slam dunk case. Over the last several years, it has not been. But yesterday's arguments provided both a glimmer of optimism for the state of property rights in the U.S., as well...

A federal appeals court has blocked the Biden administration from forcing Catholic doctors and hospitals from performing transgender surgeries, including on children. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, issued a unanimous ruling on Friday declaring that making Catholic surgeons...

Life comes at you fast. On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett decided not to get involved with Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme, denying a Wisconsin group’s bid to block the order. That had liberals spiking the football, suggesting that it wouldn’t be possible for anyone to gain standing to challenge the president’s move.Things shifted quickly on Friday, though. The 8th Circuit has now put an administrative stay in place, stopping Biden from moving forward with any cancellation of student debt.U.S. appeals court temporarily blocks Biden's student loan forgiveness plan https://t.co/dCIDJyjOxn pic.twitter.com/EwBKT2kIqd— Reuters (@Reuters) October 21, 2022Six different...

The 8th Circuit US Appeals Court blocked Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program on Friday afternoon. The court granted an emergency stay barring the discharge of any student debt until the court decides on a request for a longer-term injunction. Reuters reported: A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in college student debt, one day after a judge dismissed a Republican-led lawsuit by six states challenging the loan-forgiveness program. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay barring the discharge of any student debt under the program...

Two different federal courts, in two different Circuit Courts of appeal, have refused to grant preliminary injunctions against the implementation of the ATF “Final Rule.” The Final Rule completely changes the definition of a firearm in Federal law. On August 23, in the United States Court for the Eastern District of North Dakota, in the Eighth Circuit, Judge Peter D. Welte refused to grant a preliminary injunction against the massive changes to federal law proposed in the “Final Rule” put forward by the Biden Administration, through the ATF.On August 24, 2022, the District Court for the Galveston Division of the...

On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled that Arkansas cannot enforce a ban on “transgender” children receiving “gender-affirming” care. “Gender-affirming” care encompasses hormone therapy, puberty blockers and sex reassignment surgery. The 8th U.S. The Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the law, which prohibits doctors in the state from providing this type of care to anyone under 18 years old or referring them to other providers to receive treatment. The ACLU challenged the 2021 law on behalf of four families of transgender children and two doctors who provide “gender affirming” treatments.

President Biden and his Department of Justice were unsuccessful in arguing to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to lift an injunction against his vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt posted the one-page order to Twitter on Monday afternoon. "The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Department of Justice's motion for stay pending appeal in our lawsuit against the vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, meaning our injunction will stay in place." The legal battles within the United States over mandating a Coronavirus vaccine have been ongoing through the final weeks of 2021.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear arguments Wednesday over whether a Health and Human Services mandate can force religious-based hospitals to perform sex-reassignment procedures that could cause "harm" to patients, plaintiffs say. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden's administration restored federal protections for gay and transgender people, allowing them to sue for "sex discrimination" in healthcare. The Religious Sisters of Mercy, along with other faith-based hospitals and medical providers, argue its facilities "routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients," contending the HHS mandate should not force it to provide potentially "harmful" procedures such as sex-reassignment surgery...