Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE — A legal showdown over a controversial state elections law is set to take place next month, after a federal judge rejected efforts to short-circuit a trial in constitutional challenges by voting-rights groups. The League of Women Voters of Florida, the Florida Conference of the NAACP, Disability Rights Florida and a number of other groups filed a series of lawsuits challenging the measure (SB 90), passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature this spring as part of GOP leaders’ nationwide attempts to make it more difficult for people to vote by mail. Lawyers for the plaintiffs allege that the changes are...

A Florida man was sentenced to more than five years behind bars Friday for storming the US Capitol on Jan. 6 — the harshest penalty dished out yet over the insurrection. Robert Palmer, 54, was handed a 63-month sentence after he pleaded guilty in October to attacking police officers during the riot. “Your honor. I’m really really ashamed of what I did,” he told US District Judge Tanya Chutkan through sobs on Friday. Federal prosecutors said Palmer, of Largo Florida, was on the “front lines” of the mob attempting to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020...

A federal appeals court has reinstated the Biden administration’s vaccine and testing requirement for private businesses that covers about 80 million American workers. The ruling by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati lifted a November injunction that had blocked the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which applies to businesses with at least 100 workers. In the decision Friday, the 6th Circuit noted that OSHA has historical precedent for using wide discretion to ensure worker safety and “demonstrated the pervasive danger that COVID-19 poses to workers—unvaccinated workers in particular—in their workplaces.”

After being struck down by lower courts, an appeals court has reinstated Joe Biden’s OSHA vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. Around 80 million Americans will be directly affected by this ruling. After the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had the authority to Impose the mandate due to take effect Jan. 4, all eyes turn now to the Supreme Court where the final decision will be made. According to Just The News: “Given OSHA’s clear and exercised authority to regulate viruses, OSHA necessarily has the authority...

A federal appeals court panel on Friday allowed President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for larger private employers to move ahead. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a decision by a federal judge in a separate court that had paused the mandate nationwide. The rule from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was to take effect Jan. 4. With Friday’s ruling, it’s not clear when the requirement may be put in place. Republican-led states joined with conservative groups, business associations and some individual businesses to push back against the requirement...

A federal judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a “Christian” wedding photographer who demanded that the state’s nondiscrimination law be overturned, lest she be forced to photograph same-sex weddings. The woman, Emilee Carpenter, of Elmira, filed suit earlier this year, claiming that New York’s nondiscrimination law violates her First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, and her Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Carpenter claims to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, and that weddings are meant to be “inherently religious and solemn events.” As such,...

A U.S. district judge on Wednesday issued a sentence against a couple who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that went beyond what prosecutors recommended, giving them jail time. The Department of Justice (DOJ) had asked that Brandon Miller and his wife Stephanie Miller be sentenced to home confinement as part of a 36-month probationary period. The Ohio couple was charged with entering the Capitol, with Brandon Miller livestreaming their actions on Facebook. As WUSA reported, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled, however, that their actions warranted time behind bars. "They didn’t just walk through a door. They...

A federal judge has ruled that a New York-based Christian photographer must provide services for same-sex wedding celebrations despite holding religious objections to gay marriage. Judge Frank Geraci, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, rejected a request by Emilee Carpenter of the upstate New York-based Emilee Carpenter Photography to grant a preliminary injunction against a state anti-discrimination law. In his ruling Monday, the Obama appointee concluded that “New York has a compelling interest in ensuring that individuals, without regard to sexual orientation, have equal access to publicly available goods and services, and that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has formally returned a lawsuit over Texas’ six-week abortion ban to a federal appeals court that has twice allowed the law to stay in effect, rather than to a district judge who sought to block it. Justice Neil Gorsuch on Thursday signed the court’s order that granted the request of abortion clinics for the court to act speedily. But the clinics wanted the case sent directly to U.S. Judge Robert Pitman, who had previously though briefly blocked enforcement of the Texas abortion ban known as S.B. 8. When Pitman ordered the law blocked in...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed a nationwide ban on President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for some 17 million health care workers.The emergency rule will take effect in 26 states due to the ruling from a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.Two federal judges last month blocked the mandate. The first ruling applied to just 10 states; the second expanded the preliminary injunction across the nation.But the appeals court said it found “little justification” for the second move in the opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee, on Nov. 30.Doughty’s...

“The Seventh Circuit was skeptical Thursday of a parks advocacy organization’s arguments opposing the construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s Jackson Park, in a case that has left many supporters of the former president bewildered and angry. “If the Clinton Foundation had approached New York City and asked for 20 acres of Central Park for its Harlem headquarters, it would have been laughed out of court. “But that is essentially what the Obama Foundation asked of Chicago - and got, in a sweetheart deal inked under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who previously served as Obama’s chief of staff....

Prosecutors are asking a judge to bar a Capitol rioter from arguing that former President Donald Trump authorized him to attack the Capitol on January 6. Aaron Mostofsky, the son of a New York City judge, was photographed inside the Capitol wearing fur pelts, what appeared to be a police officer's bullet-proof vest and carrying a police officers' riot shield. Mostofsky's trial is set to begin in January and prosecutors are hoping to block him from using the "blame Trump" defense ... ..."The defendant will be unable to identify any remarks made by former President Trump that authorized that illegal...

In 2014, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed suit against the University of North Carolina. Its complaint argued that the university had engaged in intentional discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity to the detriment of SFFA members. The suit followed in a line of cases challenging the admissions policies of universities, where students from certain groups were given preferences over students who were not in those groups. In a pair of 2003 cases involving the University of Michigan, the Supreme Court ruled that universities were in violation of the law if they used a rigid quota system (Gratz...

Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected former President Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege, holding that the archivist of the United States could provide a tranche of Trump’s presidential records to the House’s “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”In a unanimous ruling, the federal appellate court concluded that President Biden’s conclusion that “an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States” controlled and that the archivist, therefore, must hand over the first of three sets of documents requested. The court added, however, that it would...

For many rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, self-incriminating messages, photos and videos that they broadcast on social media before, during and after the insurrection are influencing even their criminal sentences. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson read aloud some of Russell Peterson’s posts about the riot before she sentenced the Pennsylvania man to 30 days imprisonment. “Overall I had fun lol,” Peterson posted on Facebook. The judge told Peterson that his posts made it “extraordinarily difficult” for her to show him leniency. “The ’lol’ particularly stuck in my craw because, as I hope you’ve...

A once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive cars, parties on yachts and Tiffany jewels was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison Thursday for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel. (SNIP) U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Honeywell in handing down her sentence expressed disgust with the DEA for its failings and said other agents corrupted by “the allure of easy money” also needed to be investigated.(SNIP) Dominguez has met with prosecutors for “endless hours” to provide information on the criminal activities of “fellow law-enforcement agents who initiated...

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday against an effort by former President Donald Trump to shield documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. In a 68-page ruling, the three-judge panel tossed aside Trump's various arguments for blocking through executive privilege records that the committee regards as vital to its investigation into the run-up to the deadly riot aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election. Judge Patricia Millett, writing for the court, said Congress had “uniquely vital interests” in studying the events of Jan. 6 and said President Joe Biden had made...

A federal judge on Wednesday said the speakers at the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack, including former President Trump, "stoked" the crowd and possibly "inspired" what went down that day, according to a CNN report. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson made the remarks while sentencing defendant Russell Peterson, who reportedly sat in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) chair after storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was arrested on Feb. 12 and entered a plea agreement in September. Jackson, without saying the former president's name directly, said that Trump and the other speakers...

Click here to view the full articleA group of lawyers who sued the state of Michigan over the results of the 2020 election have been ordered by a judge to pay roughly $175,000. U.S. District Judge Linda Parker, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, ordered nine attorneys — including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — to pay $21,964.75 to Michigan and $153,285.62 to the city of Detroit, according to Forbes. In her opinion, Parker that the amount ordered to pay was an “appropriate sanction … needed to deter Plaintiffs’ counsel and others from engaging in similar misconduct in...

A federal judge in Austin Wednesday blocked Texas' social media censorship law, which prohibits large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter from censoring users "based on their political viewpoints." The law, known as House Bill 20, was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on Sept. 9 and set to take effect Thursday. However, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his ruling that the measure interferes with platforms' First Amendment right to moderate content disseminated on their platforms. Pitman called content moderation "the very tool that social media platforms employ to make their platforms safe, useful, and enjoyable for users."