Free Republic

A federal appeals court has overturned the gun conviction of a man who had failed to pay child support, saying that sort of crime shouldn’t have cost him his gun rights for the rest of his life. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in a 2-1 decision that as long as he was current in his payments, his past felony conviction doesn’t automatically make him too dangerous to society to possess a firearm. “So there’s no historical justification to disarm him at that moment — never mind for the rest of his life,” Judge James Ho, a...

Dhillon made the remarks in the wake of recent revelations that the FBI admitted it likely lacked probable cause to raid President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach in 2022. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Just the News on Wednesday that federal and local officials involved in the prosecutions of President Donald Trump may face legal action if the Department of Justice identifies a conspiracy to deprive him or his followers of his civil rights. "The Department of Justice is at the heart of considering these issues right now, so I can't really talk about the specifics, but...

Nearly 30 years ago I wrote a short article for the Human Rights Defender about the ‘right’ to own guns. In those days there wasn’t much to say. Even in the gun-crazy United States of America (USA), the courts had consistently ruled that the vaunted Second Amendment to the Constitution was no obstacle to regulation of firearms; its power was psychological and political, rather than legal. My article was prompted by the emergence of rights rhetoric from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA), part of the Australian pro-gun lobby, which had formed an alliance with the US National Rifle...

If Europe’s elites want war, they should pick up a rifle and fight. After the European Commission levied a several-hundred-million-dollar fine on Elon Musk and his social media platform X earlier this month, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a damning post in which he excoriated Europe’s rank censorship and state-sponsored propaganda. He accused the commission of engaging “in a deception campaign aimed at confusing” Europeans and Americans into thinking that European elites’ “goal” is anything other than “to censor the American people.” Shellenberger pointed out that Musk’s fine came while European governments are demanding backdoor access to all private text messages...

The question is not whether the EU collapses but whenIf I were a bookie, I would be making odds now about when the European Union will finally unravel and die. Unless there is an imminent and drastic course correction, the blessed event cannot be far off. I might need a Doomsday Clock akin to the one publicized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their clock hovers near midnight, which signifies nuclear Armageddon, the minute hand pushed closer or farther away from the blast depending on minatory world events. My clock would measure the EU’s proximity to implosion. Its recent...

Sharing a meme against President Trump in response to a memorial for assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk cost a Tennessee man his liberty for 37 days, which in turn got him fired. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is representing Larry Bushart, told Just the News on Tuesday it's still prepping a lawsuit on his behalf. The Alliance Defending Freedom beat FIRE to court in response to another alleged criminal investigation of speech related to Kirk in neighboring North Carolina, alleging a school district known for a Supreme Court precedent on school busing sanctioned an unidentified high school...

Freedom of speech will be under even greater threat if the British government is able to do away with jury trials for almost all cases because legal studies show a judge sitting alone is far more likely to convict defendants in free speech than juries, the Free Speech Union warns. The Free Speech Union warns the United Kingdom risks losing “a check on governmental power and arbitrary justice” in “the biggest assault on our liberties in 800 years” if the government is able to push ahead this week with plans said to be looking at abolishing the right to a...

By now, you’ve probably seen the giddy headlines from America’s propaganda media about the U.S. Supreme Court declining to take up a case that sought to overturn so-called “gay marriage.”“BREAKING: The Supreme Court rejects a call to overturn its decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide,” an Associated Press tweet with more than 21,000 likes reads. “Supreme Court rejects challenge to landmark same-sex marriage decision,” a USA Today headline blared. This “breaking news” is in response to an order list published by the Supreme Court on Monday detailing which cases it will and will not be taking up during its ongoing 2025-2026...

A teen boy and his mother filed a federal lawsuit against Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and its police department, alleging false arrest and imprisonment after the boy was misidentified in a surveillance video and jailed for nearly a month on gun charges. The complaint filed by Mekhi Johnson and his mother, Amber Garrity, on July 31 (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star) claims Williamsport Police Bureau Agent Benjamin Hitesman ignored evidence proving Johnson’s innocence and failed to inform prosecutors, willful omissions that a county judge later said “cast a dark cloud” over local police and all law enforcement..... Based solely on that...

The Trump Justice Department is ramping up its efforts against Colorado to get Tina Peters released from state prison. In October 2024, Tina Peters, the former Mesa County, Colorado, Clerk, was found guilty of three charges and sentenced to nine years in prison. She was jailed for preserving evidence from the 2020 elections that she was told to delete, despite laws to preserve records for a length of time. The nasty leftist judge berated her, insulted her, and told her she had “white privilege!” Tina, a 70-year-old Gold Star Mother in poor health, is now serving nine years in prison...

Perhaps no political party has had a more loyal friend than the Democrats have enjoyed in the post-1970s black community. Just look at the 2000 election, when nine out of 10 African American voters backed the robotic Al Gore, even though he paid them little more than lip service. Their blanket support caused George Bush to set modern lows for a Republican presidential contender; he captured just 8 percent of the black vote—the worst showing since Barry Goldwater. Yet there is an underappreciated fact about black America that anyone armed with a decent survey could see: Black people vote like...

In 1994, 17 Senate Republicans — including Mitch McConnell — lined up behind the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. They thought they were cutting a clever deal: In exchange for criminalizing anti-abortion protesters outside clinics, the law would also apply to anyone blocking access to churches. Like every “bipartisan compromise,” the results were anything but balanced. For decades, pro-life activists — grandmothers singing hymns, young people praying on sidewalks — faced years in prison for nonviolent protest. Meanwhile, not a single violent leftist or Islamist was prosecuted under the FACE Act for harassing or assaulting people of faith....

Attorney General Pamela Bondi issued a memorandum to all United States Attorneys highlighting the Department of Justice’s policy to prevent and act upon violations of parental rights and First Amendment liberties in educational settings. Bondi directed United States Attorneys to work with federal, state, and local partners to identify and respond to credible threats against parents whose federal rights have been violated. 20250908-AG-Bondi-Memo by scott.mcclallen "The First Amendment guarantees the right of every citizen to speak freely, assemble peaceably, and petition the government for redress of grievances-including at public school board meetings," the memo said. "These rights do not yield...

It is an interesting thing to suddenly lose one’s freedom. It would be very interesting on this day, June 3, 2022. The first thing FBI agents do when they grab you is pull your arms behind you and put you in handcuffs. No matter how gently they might try to do it, it’s still going to take a pretty good pull on your shoulder sockets. And in this case, they weren’t particularly gentle....

Local police for years have been charged under civil rights laws for abuses of authority. Now, DOJ is taking a closer look at applying those laws to federal agents in cases of political weaponization. A top Justice Department lawyer is warning that federal agents and intelligence officers who weaponized their government powers for political purposes could face criminal charges under civil rights laws created to fight injustices during the Jim Crow era more than a half-century ago.Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon cautioned in an interview with Just the News that she could not discuss any specific...

A teacher whom an Indiana school district fired over his religious beliefs opposing radical transgender ideology will be allowed to take the district to court. The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in John Kluge’s favor and reversed a previous district court ruling in a win for First Amendment rights. Brownsburg Community School Corporation fired Kluge, a music teacher, for refusing to use pronouns based on a student’s alleged gender identity instead of biological sex. Kluge cited his religious beliefs, which Brownsburg did not accept as an excuse. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), whose attorneys were defending Kluge, was thrilled...

A Missouri man was kicked out of a St. Louis City SC soccer game on July 26 for wearing an iconic “Make America Great Again” hat. The man, Michael Weitzel, filmed the entire exchange and posted it online. Now, the federal government is reportedly looking into whether the man’s civil rights were violated. The video showed four security officers approaching him during the match at Energizer Park. ... A man got kicked out of a @stlCITYsc game last night for wearing a MAGA hat.” “Security said they don’t allow political paraphernalia, ... Keller revealed, “Can confirm this video is now...

With the second Trump term, reestablishing the rule of law is underway, but its universal realization is uncertain. Federal anti-discrimination law is clear enough, but hasn’t been enforced, or has been bizarrely interpreted to not only allow men pretending to be women to participate in women’s sports, but to suggest that was the intention of those writing such laws. Other laws have been warped not only to allow the surgical mutilation of gender confused children, but to force taxpayers to pay for the procedures and to entirely abrogate parent’s rights to direct the upbringing of their children. Kamala Harris ran...

Reams have been written about the latest revelations in the Russian collusion hoax that so hamstrung President Trump’s first term. I will summarize below the most important revelations. It’s clear the Administration is taking its time to reveal the investigation’s conclusions for maximum impact -- an impact that I, like Scott Adams, believe will result in arrests of a number of people who pulled off this fraud. But first I want to discuss something which has not received the kind of attention it deserves -- the death of the legal consequences for disparate outcomes and credentialism. The Death of Disparate...

A shady government outfit in the UK that was previously tasked with identifying and monitoring COVID lockdown dissenters has been repurposed to spy on critics of mass migration and so called ‘asylum’ hotels, the Telegraph reports. The body, now known as the National Security and Online Information Team (NSOIT) has been lobbying social media companies such as TikTok to take action against users who post what it describes as “concerning narratives” about immigration and ‘two tier policing’. The unit operates within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and was previously known as the ‘Counter Disinformation Unit’ during the pandemic....