Free Republic

A federal judge has ruled against censured Maine State Rep Laurel Libby, siding with State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau. Libby filed a federal lawsuit after she was censored in the House chamber over a social media post that depicted a high school trans-identified male winning the state championship, despite President Donald Trump’s order banning trans-identified males competing in women’s sports. District Judge Melissa R. DuBose wrote in her ruling, "After carefully considering the case law, the details presented by the parties about the House governing rules, and the process by which the House adopted the Resolution and imposed the censure...

US District Judge of the District Court for the District of Rhode Island, John McConnell, an Obama appointee, accused President Trump of violating his court order blocking his federal funding freeze. In January Judge McConnell temporarily blocked Trump’s freeze on federal funding in response to a request from 22 Democrat state attorneys general and DC. Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) previously put a temporary pause of agency grant, loan and other financial assistance programs. “The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of...

A federal judge will temporarily block President Donald Trump’s administration from cutting billions in federal dollars that support COVID-19 initiatives and public health projects throughout the country. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, appointed by Trump in 2019 but first nominated by former President Barack Obama, in Rhode Island said Thursday that she plans to grant the court order sought by 23 states and the District of Columbia.“They make a case, a strong case, for the fact that they will succeed on the merits, so I’m going to grant the temporary restraining order,” said McElroy, who plans to issue a written...

A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order Thursday that stops the Trump administration from pulling back more than $11 billion in public health funding from state and local health departments. Judge Mary McElroy of the federal district court in Rhode Island granted a 14-day restraining order to a group of 23 states and the District of Columbia that filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this week. “The likelihood of success on the merits is extremely strong,” McElroy said at the conclusion of the brief hearing, noting that “the record is voluminous …...

The Second Amendment protects the right to people to "keep and bear arms," and at its core the right to self-defense, [judge] McConnell observed. [Reporter]The ban was a reasonable and measured approach to restricting large-capacity magazines, which in practice easily convert handguns into semi-automatic weapons capable of rapid fire, he said.

Feeling irrationally angry after an argument with his wife in 2015, the police were called on firearm owner Edward Caniglia to perform a welfare check. He agreed to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the hospital to determine suicidality on the condition that police not confiscate his guns. Upon returning to his home, however, Caniglia found that the police had unconstitutionally searched his house and seized his firearms. For the first time in 13 years, the Court upheld both privacy and gun rights, this time unanimously. Caniglia v. Strom’s 9-0 decision has the potential to create lasting effects and set precedent...

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...