Free Republic

The college will keep fighting a Biden administration rule that 'requires private religious colleges to place biological males into female dormitories and assign them as females’ roommates.'May 24, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – A federal district court has rejected the Missouri-based College of the Ozarks’ request to temporarily block the Biden administration from imposing a slate of new requirements on the Christian school to recognize and accommodate the “gender identity” of gender-dysphoric students. One of President Joe Biden’s earliest acts was signing an executive order declaring the “policy of my Administration to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity...

One of Joe Biden’s first orders of business was to make sure demented, perverted men could be allowed to share shower spaces with women. Biden signed an executive order in January titled, “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.” Biden’s order said. One Christian college in Missouri filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden claiming the overreach was victimizing women, girls and people of faith. The College of...

Judge: Biden's co-ed dorm mandate trumps religious freedom A district judge rejected a challenge to the Biden administration's order to force co-ed bathrooms and dorms on a Christian college over the school's religious objections. In February, the Department of Housing and Urban Development directed colleges to eliminate single-sex facilities. The directive came after President Joe Biden issued an executive order in January directing federal agencies "to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," which would mean targeting religious institutions that maintain single-sex accommodations. The College of the Ozarks, a small Missouri Christian college, challenged the Biden administration for...

Did you hear that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice wanted the Supreme Court to rule that police could search Americans’ homes for firearms — and confiscate them — without a warrant?In the case of Caniglia vs. Strom, this issue was in play. Had SCOTUS ruled that police could do that, your Second Amendment rights would have been in grave jeopardy.In March, Biden’s DoJ filed a brief with the Supreme Court in this case. It said:In its first amicus brief before the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice argued the actions taken by law enforcement to confiscate the petitioner’s firearms without...

A federal court has upheld a Florida city's decision to issue nearly $30,000 in code violation fines to a homeowner whose grass was overgrown. Following a two-year legal battle, a judge from the Middle District of Florida ruled this week that Jim Ficken, 71, will have to pay the fines to the city of Dunedin, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

DUNEDIN — A federal court upheld the City of Dunedin’s decision to issue almost $30,000 in code violation fines in 2018 to a homeowner for an overgrown lawn.Jim Ficken sued Dunedin in May 2019 after the city agreed to foreclose on his home, according to court records. He and his lawyers argued Dunedin’s fines were excessive and given with no notice.After a two-year legal battle, a judge from the Middle District of Florida ruled on Monday that the 71-year-old will have to pay up. Ficken said he plans to appeal the court’s decision.“The city’s behavior toward Jim is outrageous,” read...

The FISA Court is CompromisedI hate to write this, but there is just no good way to look at this. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, specifically Presiding Judge James Boasberg, has hired former DOJ National Security Division head, Mary McCord, as amici curiae advisor to the court. [LINK] The placement was first noted by an announcement from Georgetown Law ICAP. Presiding Judge James Boasberg, is the decision-maker in the appointment of Amici Curiae to the FISA court. There is no way, NO WAY, Judge Boasberg does not know Mary McCord was at the epicenter of the fraudulent FISA application used...

As expected, a federal judge who has ties to Planned Parenthood permanently blocked undercover journalist David Daleiden this week from releasing additional videos that Daleiden says show evidence of infanticide in the abortion industry. U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the permanent injunction at the request of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and demanded that Daleiden turn over the video footage, according to lawyers representing NAF. The order applies to about 200 hours of video footage that Daleiden and other undercover investigators with the Center for Medical Progress recorded at a NAF conference. Additionally, the judge granted NAF lawyers’ motion...

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied review in Elim Romanian Church v. Pritzker, (Docket No. 20-569, certiorari denied, 3/29/2021). (Order List). In the case, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a church's challenge to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's COVID-19 orders which restrict-- or in their latest form urge restriction-- on the size of worship services. (See prior posting.)

D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman penned a scathing dissent Friday on a defamation case The Reagan-appointed judge slammed the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan landmark decision requiring plaintiffs to prove 'actual malice' by defendantsSilberman claimed the ruling has only increased the power of the press, which is almost completely controlled by the Democratic Party 'Two of the three most influential papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets,' he wroteHe named Fox News, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal as the 'few notable exceptions to Democratic Party ideological control'

In Calvary Chapel of Ukiahv. Newsom, (ED CA, March 10, 2021), a California federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction against California's COVID-19 restriction on indoor singing and chanting during worship services. The court rejected plaintiffs' free exercise, free speech, equal protection and Establishment Clause claims. The court said in part: [T]he State has now issued protocols allowing those who serve as performers during church services, presumably including choir members or soloists, to sing indoors subject to masking and distancing.

President Donald Trump's last-minute legal bid to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia was denied by a federal judge on Tuesday. Ruling from the bench, U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen rejected the president's request for an emergency injunction to order the state legislature to choose a new slate of electors before the mandated congressional count takes place on January 6. The lawsuit was filed by Trump on New Year's Eve and accused Georgia officials of violating the state's election code in the handling and counting of mail-in ballots. The lawsuit also alleged state leaders conducted an "improper certification of...

Federal Judge Steve C. Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, is set to decide whether some 200,000 people purged from the Georgia voter rolls in 2019 can be put back on, allowing them to cast a ballot in the January 5 runoff election for two Senate seats. The Law 360 website reported on the consequential case: U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones said at the end of a three-hour hearing Thursday that he’ll decide “pretty quickly” whether to grant a request by four multi-state voter and civil rights organizations to re-register the purged voters. Voter registration for Georgia’s senatorial runoffs, which...

GA law states that a runoff election is a continuation of a primary election; therefore only persons who voted in the primary can vote in the runoff less than a month from now. I contend that the knowledge exists to state the maximum number of votes possible in the coming runoff. All the Secty of State has to do is report the names of the voters from their vote history of who voted in the primary. From that list you delete the voters with address changes out-of-state. Clearly anyone recently registered is double-checked not to be on the runoff list...

Dec. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. government on Friday plans to execute a man convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter nearly two decades ago. Alfred Bourgeois, 55, is set to receive lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. He's awaiting a Supreme Court decision on his request for a stay. His attorneys said Bourgeois' execution would be unconstitutional because he is intellectually disabled and can't understand his punishment. They submitted evidence of IQ test scores of 70 and 75, as well as assessments by experts. The Eighth Amendment bans executing people with such impairments as cruel and...

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has rejected a request from a Louisiana pastor who’d sought emergency relief from criminal charges he faces for the apparent crime of holding large church services in contravention of the state’s coronavirus rules. ... As the months passed, Spell wound up accruing three additional charges, making for a total of nine. Now fast-forward to last week, when he filed a motion with Justice Alito requesting an injunction against the charges he faces. ... For reasons that remain unclear, Alito outright rejected the request — meaning it won’t receive a full hearing in the Supreme Court...

A federal judge ruled Friday that the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees Voice of America (VOA) and other networks, unconstitutionally interfered with the news service when he went after its journalists for alleged bias against President Trump, NPR reports. Five suspended officials from the USAGM sued CEO Michael Pack in early October, accusing him of violating the "firewall" that protects international broadcasters from political interference. The officials alleged that Pack and others investigated and punished journalists for negative stories about the president, as well as stories about now President-elect Joe Biden and the racial...

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion to stay regarding a lower court decision allowing Jackson County to include the Nativity scene in its annual holiday display this year in front of the courthouse while the judges decide on the case. Liberty Counsel represents Jackson County, Indiana against the ACLU. Liberty Counsel recently presented oral argument before the three-judge panel defending the Nativity scene display at the Jackson County Courthouse. The holiday display which includes the Nativity has been ongoing for many years. After the 2019 display, the lower federal court ruled against the display. In addition to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a Trump Administration rule that opponents said would have harmed the bargaining rights of more than 500,000 home healthcare workers in California and several hundred thousand additional workers across the nation. San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria found that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule changing Medicaid state payment requirements would have made it tougher for states to deduct employee benefits and union dues from workers’ paychecks... ...The agency had said it was required to make the change because the old system was barred by federal...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge is temporarily blocking the federal government’s plan to execute the first female death row inmate in almost six decades after her attorneys contracted the coronavirus visiting her in prison. The order, handed down Thursday by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, prohibits the federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution before the end of the year. She was scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 8 at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Montgomery’s attorneys had sought to delay the execution in order to file a clemency...