Free Republic

Many suffered collateral damage in the Deep State’s scheme to take down Donald Trump, but few will find justice. On Thursday, federal Judge Leonie Brinkema tossed Svetlana Lokhova’s defamation lawsuit against Stefan Halper and a slew of legacy media outlets. Brinkema’s 41-page opinion detailing why the Russian-born U.K. citizen had no recourse for the damage inflicted on her by the SpyGate plotters and their partners in the press exposed the sad reality of this wide-ranging scandal: many suffered collateral damage in the Deep State’s scheme to take down Trump, but few will find justice.Lokhova, an historian and former Ph.D. student...

It’s safe to say that the left is in full-blown panic mode over the Supreme Court vacancy and have already begun viciously targeting possible Trump pick and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett over her conservative values, her Catholic faith, and, most of all, her gender.  A Tuesday afternoon CNN Newsroom segment illustrated that with guest and Daily Beast contributing editor Erin Gloria Ryan asserting that, if President Trump selects a woman, they “should be known as the Aunt Lydia of the Supreme Court” in reference to a villain from liberal dystopian show The Handmaid’s Tale. In addition,...

Liberal journalists are worried about Neil Gorsuch. The October 16 issue of Time magazine fretted of the newly-minted conservative Supreme Court justice: “Does Justice Neil Gorsuch talk too much?" Writer Tessa Berenson touted liberal critics complaining about Gorsuch “ruffling some feathers.” It didn’t take long for the newest member to make his presence known on the Court. Gorsuch, a conservative judge nominated by President Trump and confirmed in April, had been sitting in his first oral argument last spring for just 10 minutes before he asked his first question. Over the next hour, he asked 21 more, posing more questions...

With the Senate’s Supreme Court confirmation vote for Judge Neil Gorsuch just days away and the possibly of Republicans nuking the filibuster looming, NBC’s Chuck Todd seemed as though he was in a near panic on Sunday’s Meet The Press. Besides his declarations of the GOP continuing the Senate’s decent down the “slippery slope” of removing the filibuster, Todd pestered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the Senate to hold a vote for former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland. “There is clearly a debate and a fight about how Supreme Court justices are confirmed, how it was handled,”...

mid the petty bickering, loud rhetoric, and sordid attack ads in this year’s primary election campaigns, the death of a giant — Justice Antonin Scalia — suddenly overshadows all of that. The vacancy created on the Supreme Court makes painfully clear the huge stakes involved when we choose a president of the United States, just one of whose many powers is the power to nominate justices of the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia’s passing would be a great loss at any time. But at this crucial juncture in the history of the nation — with 5–4 Supreme Court decisions determining what...

All I have to say is: God Bless MY Lt. Gov. (the man who I want as our ~next~ NC Governor). Looks like we finally have someone with guts who understands the true role of Federalism!! Just goes to show (along with the ruling yesterday out of Puerto Rico-along with their public rally for real marriage). That it's not too late on this issue!

Today's Phelps-Roper v. Strickland upholds a ban on "'picketing' or 'other protest activities,' within 300 feet of the funeral or burial service, from one hour before until one hour after the funeral or burial service." ("Other protest activities" is defined as "any action that is disruptive or undertaken to disrupt or disturb a funeral or burial service or a funeral procession.") The court concludes that the ban is content-neutral, serves the important government interest in "protect[ing] the citizens of Ohio from disruption during the events associated with a funeral or burial service," including disruption in the sense of "unwanted communication...

Sources say the White House has tentatively signed off on a package of five judicial nominees proposed by Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Robert Casey that would fill all of the vacancies on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania bench and one of two openings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the deal goes through, the White House will first withdraw the nomination of Eastern District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter to the 3rd Circuit, replacing her with Eastern District Judge Paul S. Diamond. Pratter's nomination had been met with significant opposition and was ultimately doomed when Casey refused...

Burglars should no longer be sentenced to jail, official advisers have said. Unpaid work or a curfew would normally be a better way of punishing break-ins and thefts, said a panel that issues guidelines to judges. The report - part of a consultation document on criminal sentencing - is likely to heighten concerns that Britain's courts are not punishing offenders harshly enough to deter others. It also says victims of crime could be allowed a say in the way criminals are punished - but only if they call for leniency rather than harsh sentencing. For the first time, magistrates and...

The city of New Haven, Connecticut, went to great lengths to devise a firefighter test that would not have "disparate impact" on minority applicants, but when the results of the 2003 test-taking came in, applying the city's "Rule of Three" which required selection from among the highest scorers, "no blacks and at most two Hispanics would have been eligible for promotion to captain and no blacks or Hispanics would have been eligible to make lieutenant". So the city civil service board vacated the results, frankly acknowledging that it was in search of better minority hiring numbers. White applicants sued and...

The murder conviction of a Laredo teenager allegedly hired by the Gulf cartel to execute a rival gang member has been overturned by the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio. Rosalio Reta, 18, was sentenced to 40 years in state prison last year after he pleaded guilty to the 2006 murder of Noe Flores. Flores was gunned down at a party on East Frost Street after his assassins mistakenly took him for his half brother Michael Lopez. Prosecutors said Reta and two other teens were hired to kill Lopez by high-ranking cartel member Miguel Treviño Morales, or "El Cuarenta."...

Environment: Global warming alarmists haven't made much progress in getting lawmakers to join their cause. So naturally they're going to try to use the courts to ram through their agenda.Drawing upon a lawyer's talent for dreaming up novel — and in this case outrageous — legal theories, a University of Oregon law professor is pushing the idea that the atmosphere is public property held in trust by the government, which has the duty to protect it from harm. The biggest problem with this idea is that it's beginning to gain some attention. After hearing Oregon law professor Mary Wood speak...

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Georgia gun dealer Jay Wallace's decision Monday to default on a lawsuit by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and carry his case to an appeals court, was the right move because of genuine concerns he could not get a fair trial before federal judge Jack B. Weinstein, the Second Amendment Foundation said today. SAF has been the largest single contributor to Wallace's defense against the rogue lawsuit filed by Bloomberg, following the anti-gun mayor's infamous vigilante sting operation in 2006. SAF founder Alan Gottlieb concurred with Wallace's attorney, John Renzulli, that "There was no chance for a...

Illegal Immigrant Cases Clogging Federal Courts By Jeff Golimowski CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer June 19, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - If you drive by the federal courthouse in Las Cruces, N.M., on a Sunday night, you'll probably see something odd: the lights are burning. Workers in the Court Clerk's Office for the District of New Mexico are working late on Sundays, getting ready for Monday mornings. "[My staff] is stretched pretty thin," admitted Clerk of the Court Matt Dykman. "You'll have 50 or 60 new complaints coming in, and that starts at 8:30 [on a Monday], so there's no way to get...

The newly released e-mails on the U.S. Attorney firings are here. TPM Muckraker is enlisting its readers to pore through them. But you know that the people who read that blog won’t pick out the parts that aid the Administration’s case. That’s where you come in. I am enlisting the Great Patterico Army — all few dozen of you — to look through these and tell us what the media is going to leave out. It’s not about defending the Administration. It’s about keeping the other side (Democrats and Big Media, but I repeat myself) honest. Or some reasonable facsimile...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a mandatory 55-year prison sentence, condemned as excessive by the federal judge who imposed it, for a man convicted of carrying a handgun during three marijuana deals. Record producer Weldon Angelos received the minimum sentence under the law -- a harsher sentence than a child rapist or a terrorist who detonates a bomb aboard an aircraft would receive, according to his attorneys. The justices, without comment, left the prison term undisturbed. Angelos was convicted of 16 counts of violating federal firearms, drug and money laundering laws in 2003. The charges stemmed...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday wrestled with voluntary integration plans in public schools, asking whether Seattle's "Open Choice" program is an acceptable move toward student diversity or another name for illegal racial quotas. At the start of two hours of argument, the justices referred repeatedly to a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that permitted the limited consideration of race to attain a diverse student body on the college level. Does Seattle's program go too far in assigning some students to schools they didn't request? the justices wanted to know in questioning lawyers for the school district, the Bush administration...

You've heard a lot about the ACLU lawsuit since its filing yesterday. But you haven't heard much about its less famous plaintiffs, plaintiffs with whom I'm all too familiar and about whom I've written a great deal. The details on these individuals makes the National Security Agency's monitoring of phone calls not just warranted, but a necessity. I'm referring to ACLU lawyers Noel Saleh, Mohammed Abdrabboh, and Nabih Ayad, the ACLU Plaintiffs named in the yesterday's Complaint, attorney William Swor, a member National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Nazih Hassan--all named in the lawsuit. They are exactly the kind...

KENTON, Ohio (AP) -- It was intended to be a prank: steal a decoy deer, place it on a country road and watch as motorists swerved to avoid it. It ended with two teenagers suffering serious injuries when their car hit the decoy and rolled into a ditch. When a judge ruled this week that two boys -- both high school football players -- can complete the football season before they serve 60-day sentences at a juvenile detention center, it caused a division in this northwest Ohio city. On one side are those who say allowing Dailyn Campbell, a 16-year-old...

CINCINNATI - Even though the administration's warrantless surveillance program is heading toward an appellate court loaded with Bush appointees, the court's mixed record makes it difficult to predict how it will view the surveillance, lawyers said. ADVERTISEMENT "It is not a foregone conclusion that a conservative-dominated court is going to say, ' President Bush did this and we're going to uphold what he wants,'" said Robert A. Sedler, a law professor at Wayne State University. "There are many issues in this case. Conservative judges often have a very strongly libertarian streak."