Free Republic

“Our democracy cannot very well function if individual judges issue extraordinary relief to every plaintiff who clamors to object to executive action,” U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said in her ruling on Monday. “It is not the role of a district court judge to direct the policies of the Executive Branch first and ask questions later.” Those are the words many observers of the ongoing judicial coup have wanted to hear from a federal judge since the first wave of injunctions from tyrannical district court judges started coming down early in the Trump administration’s tenure, blocking the president elected...

Americans don’t have time for Barrett to spend years figuring out what kind of justice she wants to be. What kind of Supreme Court justice is Amy Coney Barrett going to be?That appeared to be the question a new expose by New York Times hack Jodi Kantor attempted to answer. Published Sunday, the lengthy article features analysis of the Trump appointee’s SCOTUS record thus far, as well as comments from former associates and Court watchers on her jurisprudence and how she approaches legal questions. The goal, as it seems, is to decipher whether the Catholic mother of seven will follow...

A judge in California on Monday blocked the Trump administration from using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants in the Los Angeles area, ruling that the government hasn't promised adequate due process. The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Holcomb — who was nominated by President Trump in 2019 — is the latest to limit the administration's controversial practice of rapidly deporting people accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua under the 1798 law, which allows removals during an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" of the United States. Courts in three other states have also...

President Donald Trump has privately complained that the Supreme Court justices he appointed have not sufficiently stood behind his agenda, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversations. But he has directed particular ire at Justice Amy Coney Barrett, his most recent appointee, one of the sources said. The behind-closed-doors grievances have been wide-ranging, and while many have been about Barrett, Trump has also expressed frustration about Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the sources familiar with the matter said. The complaints have gone on for at least a year, the sources said. The president’s anger, sources said, has been...

President Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own MAGA image. Will he now do the same to the conservative legal movement? During his first term, Trump benefited immeasurably from his association with Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society official whose advice on judicial nominations helped Trump to transform the U.S. Supreme Court into a conservative legal juggernaut that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, overturned affirmative action in higher education, and expanded the right to keep and bear arms. Such rulings will likely be remembered as Trump's most far-reaching accomplishments as president. Yet now, Trump is denouncing both...

"Article III Project" founder Mike Davis and "War Room" host Steve Bannon comment on the role the Federalist Society and its chairman Leonard Leo played in the first Trump administration and how this term will be different.MIKE DAVIS: Yeah, when you have Leonard Leo taking over a billion dollars—I think it was like $1.6 billion—from a billionaire who gave him his fortune, Barre Seid, and then Leonard sat on the sidelines with all that money for three years of lawfare and didn’t support groups that were helping President Trump with the lawfare.He actually had guys out there like Ed Whelan,...

President Trump went off on the Federalist Society for recommending him judges when he was ‘new to Washington’ after a three-judge panel on the US Court of International Trade blocked him from unilaterally imposing tariffs. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel at the US Court of International Trade ruled President Trump exceeded his authority to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). The three judge panel included: Gary Katzmann (Obama), Timothy Reif (Trump) and Jane Restani (Reagan). The Trump DOJ immediately appealed the federal court’s permanent injunction and the federal circuit court’s en banc order...

A federal judge ruled this week that the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) may not force Catholic employers to accommodate abortion and IVF or to abide by Biden-era LGBT “anti-discrimination” rules. The Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, and the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA) had sued over the regulations last year, arguing their enforcement under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act violated the religious freedom rights of Catholic groups.“The US District Court for the District of North Dakota entered judgment Wednesday,” according to Bloomberg Law, “a day after Judge Daniel M. Traynor ruled that EEOC’s regulations under the Pregnant Workers Fairness...

Two federal judges on Wednesday blocked the removal of Venezuelan nationals and alleged TdA gang members facing deportation under the Alien Enemies Act after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. US District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., a Trump appointee, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) through April 23 or until he issues an order. “Respondents are enjoined from transferring, relocating, or removing J.A.V., J.G.G., W.G.H., or any other person that Respondents claim are subject to removal under the Proclamation, from the El Valle Detention Center; and Respondents are enjoined from...

A federal judge on Thursday delivered a major blow to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), denying their attempt to force the Trump administration into continuing taxpayer funding for their massive refugee resettlement operations. Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, rejected the bishops’ request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have forced the administration to immediately restore funding. The lawsuit, filed by the non-profit organization USCCB in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenged the Trump administration’s decision to cut off federal grants that fuel the mass resettlement of migrants across America—programs that have...

A federal judge has blocked a Maine law requiring a three-day waiting period to buy a firearm in response to a legal challenge filed by gun dealers who argue the restrictions are unconstitutional. The ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge Lance Walker sided with the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, Gun Owners of Maine and several gun sellers who filed a lawsuit last year alleging the law requiring people to wait 72 hours to acquire a firearm — even if they pass a required criminal background check. Walker's ruling temporarily blocks the law while he considers the legal challenge. "Citizens wishing...

Danielle R. Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced her resignation in a statement that does not refer to the DOJ directive. Danielle R. Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who was ordered to drop the corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams, has resigned, a senior official said Thursday. The move appears to be a rebuke to the Justice Department. It comes three days after Emil Bove, the acting U.S. deputy attorney general, issued a memo ordering federal prosecutors in New York to drop the...

A federal judge rejected Cooper Union's request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Jewish students that alleged the New York college violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to protect them from anti-Semitic attacks.Judge John Cronan also admonished Cooper Union for arguing that the Jewish students should have hidden when anti-Semitic agitators cornered them in the school library...In October 2023, anti-Israel protesters... banged on the locked doors and the large floor-to-ceiling windows, demanding to be let in.In response, 10 Jewish students filed suit against Cooper Union in April 2024, alleging that the college failed to protect them...

From U.S. v. Saleem, decided [yesterday] by Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson, Steven Agee, and Allison Rushing: The Supreme Court in Heller defined "arms" as "any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another." Therefore, "the Second Amendment extends … to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." While a silencer may be a firearm accessory, it is not a "bearable arm" that is capable of casting a bullet. Moreover, while silencers may serve...

A federal judge has halted President Joe Biden’s plans to open the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to illegal aliens enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In May, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced a final rule to open Obamacare rolls to some DACA illegal aliens enrolled in the program. Former President Barack Obama first created the DACA program via executive order, shielding more than a million illegal aliens from deportation through the years. On Monday, District Judge Daniel Traynor granted a preliminary injunction and stay to ensure that Biden’s agencies cannot implement such...

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a high-profile case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT). The decision mandates the FDA to release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) file for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine no later than June 30, 2025. The case stemmed from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the PHMPT, which sought comprehensive data related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA initially claimed it would need up to 75 years to process and release the requested documents....

On September 27, 2024, Federal District Court Judge Michael T. Liburdi rendered a decision in American Encore v. Adrian Fontes that weaponized algorithms surreptitiously embedded in various state boards of elections official voter registration database, turning them into a tool to block elections that bear the modus operandi of mail-in ballot election fraud from being certified.In his decision, Judge Liburdi referenced a provision in the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, had issued. That provision required the Secretary of State to certify an election by excluding the votes of any county that refused...

...Judge Trevor McFadden sided with two ranchers from Arizona—a border state that's a battleground in the presidential race—who claimed that the Biden administration's halt on the border wall, which violated laws requiring an environmental review, caused concrete damage to the environment. The case centers around whether the Biden administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not reviewing the potential environmental impact of halting construction.. The ruling came from the case Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security... "In sum, the Court finds that Smith suffered tangible harms that were caused by an influx...

A federal judge in Kentucky has partially blocked a U.S. Transportation Department program that metes out contracts to minority-owned businesses and suggested he may eventually rule against it, marking the latest blow to a government affirmative action program. In a 28-page opinion issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove wrote that, for now, the scope of the injunction is limited to the two plaintiffs — both transportation contractors — and at least two states, Kentucky and Indiana... "...the Court is sure that the federal government has nothing but good intentions in trying to remedy past wrongs,” wrote Van...

On August 30, 2024, Judge Iain D. Johnston of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an order and opinion showing the ban on carrying concealed weapons on public transportation is unconstitutional. The ban is “as applied”. It is only applicable to the individuals before the court in this case. The Chicago Transit Authority is commonly referred to as the CTA. From the opinion and order: After an exhaustive review of the parties’ filings and the historical record,as required by Supreme Court precedent, the Court finds that Defendants failed to meet their burden to show...