Free Republic

The Trump administration on Tuesday formally asked the Supreme Court to block a nationwide ban on the administration's new asylum policy that was unilaterally instituted by a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge last month. In a November news conference days before the midterm elections, Trump had vowed to turn away all asylum seekers who attempt to cross the border illegally instead of properly presenting themselves at ports of entry. The president, who has long said the asylum process is rife with fraud, said the emergency policy was necessary as the leading Central American migrant caravan approached the U.S. border...

The Supreme Court on Monday avoided a high-profile case by rejecting appeals from Kansas and Louisiana in their effort to strip Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood, over the dissenting votes of three justices. The court's order reflected a split among its conservative justices and an accusation from Justice Clarence Thomas that his colleagues seemed to be ducking the case for political reasons. The two states were appealing lower court rulings that had blocked them from withholding money that is used for health services for low-income women. The money is not used for abortions. Abortion opponents have said Planned Parenthood should...

Build It: While POTUS Donald Trump still has RINOs and Democrats in Congress to deal with in getting his promised border wall built, at least he doesn’t have to worry about pesky lawsuits from environmentalists. On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by a number of environmental groups seeking to stop the border wall project by claiming it would destroy the planet or something. The Washington Examiner reported that the SCOTUS would not consider an appeal by three environmental groups of a lower court ruling that gave the government the green light to begin replacing border fencing...

The Supreme Court declined to review three cases relating to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood at the state level Monday, over a vigorous dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. The dissent was significant because it indicates that Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the high court’s liberal wing to deny review of a lower court decision that favored the nation’s largest abortion provider. “So what explains the Court’s refusal to do its job here?,” Thomas wrote. “I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named ‘Planned Parenthood.'” “Some tenuous connection to a...

The dispute did not involve abortion, but rather a legal battle over whether states could block Medicaid patients' access to other health services. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left lower court victories intact for Planned Parenthood in a legal battle with states over access by Medicaid patients to the group's services. The dispute did not involve abortion, but the action by the justices keeps a hot-button political issue off the docket. Three of the court's conservatives said the court should have taken the case. After an anti-abortion group released videos in 2015 that purported to show officials...

The Supreme Court Monday rebuffed efforts by states to block funding to Planned Parenthood. It left in place two lower court opinions that said that states violate federal law when they terminate Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood affiliates who offer preventive care for low income women. It would have taken four justices to agree to hear the issue, and only three conservative justices -- Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch -- voted to hear the case. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to side with the court's liberals in not taking up the case -- showing...

MeToo loudmouth and Bay Area Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris of California has gotten herself into yet another scrap, this one claiming she knew nothing about a $400,000 payoff for a sexual harassment case brought on by one of her top staffers. How very ironic, given how she stuck it to spotless Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over sex harassment phony claims during his confirmation hearings and tried to make herself the figurehead for being sterling tough against sex harassment. The hypocrisy is thick. According to Fox News : A senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., resigned...

Labor unions are collecting dues from public employees without their “affirmative consent” in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling that state laws requiring nonunion government workers to make such payments are unconstitutional, a new lawsuit alleges. The Freedom Foundation, a free market think tank based in Washington state, joined with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to sue on behalf of 10 government employees in Oregon who argue that union dues or fees should not be deducted from their paychecks after they officially resigned from their union. “This is one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever witnessed from...

Split 3rd Circuit Upholds NJ's Ban on Large-Capacity Gun Magazines The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has rejected a challenge to New Jersey’s ban on firearm magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The appeals court, by a 2-1 margin, said the law limiting high-capacity magazines does not violate the Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The court affirmed an order from the U.S. District Court that denied challengers’ motion to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the law. Judges Joseph Greenaway Jr. and Patty Shwartz ruled to affirm the lower court....

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case that may rein in abusive property seizures by state and local governments through the highly controversial legal tool known as civil asset forfeiture. The case at issue involves a man named Tyson Timbs, who sold $225 worth of heroin to undercover police officers on two occasions, as a means of raising money to support his own drug habit. Police arrested Timbs while he was driving to a third drug deal, and he ultimately pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to a year of home confinement and five years of...

California Democrats will be taking another stab at requiring all public colleges and universities to stock the abortion pill, anticipating a different outcome with a new governor taking over the helm in January. Democratic state Sen. Connie Leyva on Monday introduced the latest version of the bill, the College Student Right to Access Act, during the first day of the Senate's session. The legislation would make abortion pills available to students at schools associated with the University of California and California State University. A similar bill was vetoed in October by outgoing Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who said there was...

“They had two years to defund Planned Parenthood, and they failed,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America. “It’s a huge frustration. We worked so hard to elect supposedly these pro-life Republican officials, and we expected results.” As disappointing as this might be, it comes down to basic math, and Democrats had it on their side. The House has passed defunding language on a number of occasions, but the filibuster rules in the Senate require 60 votes for any appropriation bill. Not only couldn’t Republicans find nine Democrats to vote to strip Planned Parenthood...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a challenge by three conservation groups to the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a victory for Trump who has made the wall a centerpiece of his hardline immigration policies. The justices’ declined to hear the groups’ appeal of a ruling by a federal judge in California rejecting their claims that the administration had pursued border wall projects without complying with applicable environmental laws. The groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Defenders of Wildlife. Their...

The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a case arguing that a key law giving President Trump authority to build a border wall is unconstitutional. The case was denied along with dozens of others in a list issued Monday, without explanation by the nine justices.

Could Danny Cevallos’ days at MSNBC be numbered? The question arises because he has–twice by my count–had the temerity to confound liberal thinking on Joy Reid’s show. Back in February, we noted Cevallos gently explaining to Reid that her suggestion that payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal could be “bribes” was wrong. If that was a gutsy thing for Cevallos to do, he took things a giant step further today. For many liberals, abortion is the ultimate issue, and Roe v. Wade the sacred cow. But Cevallos had the audacity to flatly assert: “Anyone–people on both sides would agree...

Noooooooooooo!!! Say it ain't so! Where oh where will your humble correspondent get his Brony updates? The sad day has finally arrived. MSNBC, as has been completely expected, has dumped both Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid. What kind of cruel world is this that a TV show can be cancelled merely due to horrible ratings? Dylan Byers at Politico delivers the sad funeral oration:

This week on The David Rubenstein Show, retired Justice Kennedy finally admitted the real reason behind his Obergefell ruling, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that created a novel definition of marriage to give legal status to same-sex couples. Kennedy said, “It seemed to me just wrong that under the Constitution, over 100,000 adopted children of gay parents could not have their parents married. I just thought this was wrong.” Well, now we know. The justice’s reasoning had nothing to do with Constitutional principles. He had an emotional reaction and in his hubris he imposed his private feelings on the nation....

Uncertain of rules on NR, but had to post this

A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr....

Full title: Washington Post admits gaffe after putting story on Kavanaugh coaching basketball in ‘Public Safety’ sectionThe Washington Post admitted it made a blunder on Wednesday by placing a story about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh coaching youth basketball under the “Public Safety” section online. Kavanaugh, who recently returned to coach his daughter’s basketball team, was famously accused of sexual assault during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Kavanaugh denied all allegations and was confirmed after an FBI investigation. Media watchdogs were then shocked when Ann Marimow’s Nov. 27 piece on his youth coaching appeared in the “Public Safety” section. However,...