Free Republic

"Companies were seized, assets were frozen and lives were upended" as a result of misconduct by prosecutors for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal judge said while dismissing a civil fraud case against Utah cryptocurrency brokers and awarding the brokers $1.8 million in attorney fees. U.S. Chief District Judge Robert Shelby upbraided the commission, saying it recklessly used "layers of false statements" in a "gross abuse of power," saying their misrepresentations were "deeply troubling" and undermined the integrity of the judicial process, before dismissing its case May 28 and ordering payment of fees that will ultimately be financed...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the U.S. Treasury from enforcing a provision of the American Rescue Plan Act that prohibited states from using the pandemic relief funds to offset new tax cuts. U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler ruled Monday in Alabama that Congress exceeded its power in putting the so-called tax mandate on states. He entered a final judgement in favor of 13 states that had filed a lawsuit and instructed the Treasury Department not to enforce the provision. The judge left the rest of the law in place. The American Rescue Plan steered $195...

The Biden administration’s plan to distribute post-pandemic farm loan relief to non-white farmers was hit with another legal defeat on Thursday.District Court Judge S. Thomas Anderson of the Western District of Tennessee issued a preliminary injunction to halt the U.S. Department of Agriculture from moving forward with the loan payment plan that excluded white farmers and ranchers.“The Court finds that Plaintiff has shown a substantial likelihood that he will prevail on his claim that Section 1005 violates his right to equal protection under the law,” the decision states. “Absent action by the Court, socially disadvantaged farmers will obtain debt relief,...

The Supreme Court struck down a California regulation granting union organizers access to farmworkers on agricultural fields, ruling Wednesday that the 1975 measure violated growers’ private-property rights. The decision, by a 6-3 vote along the court’s conservative-liberal divide, erases a major victory that Cesar Chavez’s farmworker movement achieved in the 1970s, when they argued the nature of agricultural labor made it too difficult to reach workers outside the fields.