Free Republic

A federal court is declaring that employers must cover gender-transition surgeries for their employees in their health insurance plans. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled last week that a refusal by an employer to cover gender-transition surgeries in an employee’s health insurance violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.” In the court’s majority opinion, Clinton-appointed Judge Charles R. Wilson wrote, “Generally, discrimination in the Title VII context occurs when an employer intentionally treats an employee worse than other similarly situated...

<p>The former top prosecutor in Baltimore, convicted of fraud for lying about financial hardship during the pandemic in order to buy a beach house with money from the federal government, will serve no prison time.</p><p>Marilyn Mosby, 44, was sentenced to 12 months of house arrest, 100 hours of community service and three years of supervised release Thursday, Erek Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland announced.</p>

Convicted fraudster and former Baltimore District Attorney Marilyn Mosby will avoid jail time for perjury and mortgage fraud after facing up to 40 years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby said the fact that Mosby is a mother of two daughters helped motivate her decision to sentence the former prosecutor to 12 months of home detention, three years of supervised release, and 100 hours of community service in lieu of prison, WBAL TV reported. Though Mosby has maintained her innocence, she was found guilty of taking advantage of the CARES Act — the first coronavirus relief bill...

On Thursday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that Steven Duarte, a felon, has a “right to possess a firearm for self-defense.” Courthouse News Service noted Duarte has five felony convictions and was a member of a street gang in Los Angeles. The decision upholding Duarte’s gun rights was split, with George W. Bush appointee Carlos Bea and Donald Trump appointee Lawrence VanDyke deciding in the majority. Bea wrote the majority opinion, noted the panel tested the prohibition against felons possessing guns in light of Bruen (2022) and found the government...

A DEA agent accused of killing a cyclist in Salem while on duty had his case presented before a federal appeals court today in Seattle. At the center of today’s hearing was whether the agent could claim immunity from state prosecution because he was an on-duty federal agent. On March 28, 2023, Marganne Allen was riding her bike home from work in southeast Salem. Video from that day shows a black pickup truck running a stop sign moments before striking and killing the cyclist.

A judge last week overturned a portion of a North Carolina law regulating abortion pill distribution in the state. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles gave a partial victory to Dr. Amy Brant, the abortionist who had sued the state, and who argued that its regulations go above and beyond the guidance of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In her ruling, Eagles overturned the portion of the law mandating that mifepristone be prescribed only by doctors and only in person, as well as a requirement that patients have an in-person follow-up appointment. Eagles allowed other portions of the law to...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s photo voter identification law is set to go to trial Monday, with arguments expected to focus on whether the requirement unlawfully discriminates against Black and Hispanic citizens or serves legitimate state interests to boost public confidence in elections. The non-jury trial in Winston-Salem begins more than five years after the state NAACP and several local chapters sued over the voter ID law enacted by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in late 2018. This litigation, along with similar lawsuits in state courts, delayed implementation of the requirement until last year’s municipal elections....

On Tuesday a 2-1 Democrat majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit invalidated a good West Virginia law protecting girls’ sports against invasion by male-bodied transgender students. The Richmond-based tribunal held that West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act violates the federal Title IX law, which was enacted to protect girls’ sports, and also that West Virginia’s protection of girls’ sports may further violate the Constitution. The Biden-appointed judge who wrote this absurd decision repeatedly used the propaganda term “sex assigned at birth,” as if sex were arbitrary and merely “assigned” to a newborn. On the contrary,...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the West Virginia law banning transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The ruling comes amid a wave of anti-trans legislation cropping up across the country, as well as efforts to fight back against it. The ban in West Virginia was originally signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and introduced as the "Save Women's Sports Act." It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete's participation in...

I read this on a "Spring Valley" vitamin bottle at Walmart the other day... Sobriety Check Update lets play the song... Does that song make you angry or did it make you angry when you first heard it... Getting back to "DEI" I didn't say it wasn't a problem or isn't a problem I would be denying my own experience. I worked in television news and right before I was drummed out as a drunk in 1990 I could see corporate efforts to bring in "Minority" hires. Marxist-Leninist thinking was in the heart of one of those hires she did...

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit challenging a District of Columbia law allowing “noncitizen residents” to vote in local elections. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, found that a group of seven citizen plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the legislation. Their lawsuit against the D.C. Board of Elections, filed on March 14, aimed to block the 2022 law passed by the Council of the District of Columbia. They argued that “noncitizens” do not have a fundamental right to vote in the United States and that allowing them to cast ballots and hold office in...

BILLINGS, Mont.—A Montana rancher illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep killed by hunters in central Asia and the United States to breed “giant” hybrid sheep for sale to private hunting preserves in Texas, according to court documents and federal prosecutors. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, of Vaughn, Montana pleaded guilty to felony charges of wildlife trafficking and conspiracy to traffic wildlife during an appearance Tuesday before a federal judge in Great Falls. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Court documents describe a yearslong conspiracy, beginning in 2013, in which Mr....

UPDATED: A federal judge has found Catherine Herridge in civil contempt of his order that she reveal the source of stories she wrote when she worked for Fox News. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper set a fine of $800 per day, but he stayed the ruling to give her time to appeal. The judge had ordered Herridge to reveal her sources for 2017 stories that reported on a federal investigation of Yanping Chen, a naturalized U.S. citizen who founded the University of Management and Technology in Virginia. The stories had to do with Chen’s affiliations with the Chinese military. The...

A Florida man accused of facilitating an illegal health care scheme has been spared additional prison time, ending the Justice Department's attempt to reprosecute him after his sentence was commuted by former President Donald Trump. Philip Esformes on Thursday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and was sentenced to time served, with prosecutors agreeing to dismiss the remaining five counts. It's a quiet conclusion to a controversial prosecution that saw the federal government resuscitate the criminal case against him not long after he'd spent four and a half years behind bars and was released...

<p>Navarro, a trade adviser under President Donald Trump, was sentenced last month to four months in prison after being convicted of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the Democrat-run House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6.</p>

On January 31, 2024, US District Court Judge Susan P. Watters published an opinion on the motion to dismiss the Gun Free School Zone case in Billings, Montana. She found the Gun Free School Zone Act (GFSZA) to be constitutional. The case has been covered extensively here on AmmoLand. The person charged, Gabriel Metcalf, had reason to carry a firearm for his own defense and that of others outside his home in Billings, Montana. His home is across the street from an elementary school. The school was not in session while he was carrying outside his home.Gabriel Metcalf’s primary defense...

Former Trump advisor Peter Navarro was on Thursday sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to comply with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Navarro was convicted in September on two counts of contempt of Congress — one for failing to produce documents related to the probe and another for skipping his deposition. Prosecutors argued Thursday that Navarro showed “utter disregard” for the House committee’s probe and “utter contempt for the rule of law.” They asked the judge to impose a six-month prison term.

If the Democratic attorney general of The Garden State wants to shut down your business or scare away your donors, the federal courts cannot help you. That's the warning issued by a network of pro-life pregnancy centers fighting an allegedly harassing subpoena from New Jersey AG Matthew Platkin, who seeks a wide range of documents going back 10 years, after a federal court ruled Jan. 12 it didn't have jurisdiction to hear their constitutional challenge. First Choice Women's Resource Centers filed an emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal Tuesday to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, accusing U.S....

When cops stopped Antonio Sing-Ledezma's car following a shooting outside El Paso, Texas, in March and asked him if he had anything illegal on him, he didn't mention the handgun with the scratched-off serial number hidden in the vehicle. Sing-Ledezma, who did admit to having some marijuana and a glass pipe in his jacket pocket, told the officers that he had just been shot. When they asked him who pulled the trigger, however, he became uncooperative. A subsequent search of his vehicle turned up the weapon. A Mexican citizen wanted for murder in his home country who'd previously been deported...

Washington — A federal judge in Georgia on Thursday approved a congressional map redrawn by the state's GOP-led legislature after its original voting lines were found to be crafted in violation of federal voting rights law. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones said in a 15-page order that the General Assembly "fully complied" with his October order that required the creation of a majority-Black congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta. His acceptance of the new map, which maintains Republicans' 9-5 edge for its congressional delegation, sets up the new bounds to be used in the 2024 election. Jones...