Free Republic

Tuesday morning the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments pursuant to a case in which Charles and Kathleen Moore argue that an obscure provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is unconstitutional. This is not an “inside baseball” case that only compulsive Court watchers will care about. If the justices rule against the Moores, it will supercharge the government’s confiscatory powers by enabling its inclination to tax unrealized income. This will affect everyone reading this column, not just investors with large stock portfolios. It would, in theory, permit the IRS to tax an increase in the value...

2024 GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie on Sunday criticized his primary opponents for not clearly stating their positions on federal abortion policy, saying voters deserve a “straight answer” from the candidates. “I’m concerned, quite frankly, Margaret, that, you know, candidates in this race have been all over the block on this. And it’s not right. People deserve to have a straight answer from you. And that’s my straight answer,” Christie told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan in an interview on “Face the Nation.”

A former FBI informant stabbed Derek Chauvin, the ex-police officer who was convicted for murdering George Floyd, according to court documents filed on Dec. 1. John Turscak, 52, stabbed Mr. Chauvin 22 times with an "improvised knife" in federal prison in Arizona, according to the documents. Mr. Turscak was subdued by responding corrections officers. Mr. Turscak later told officers he would have killed Mr. Chauvin if the officers had not responded so quickly, federal prosecutors said in the documents. The stabbing took place on Nov. 24 at about 12:30 p.m. Mr. Turscak waived his Miranda rights and told FBI agents...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will soon consider whether to hear appeals brought by people charged with offenses relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol in cases that could have a major impact on the criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump. The justices are weighing three different appeals brought by defendants Joseph Fischer, Edward Lang and Garret Miller...The three men are seeking to dismiss a charge accusing them of obstructing an official proceeding, namely the certification by Congress of President Joe Biden’s election victory, which was disrupted by a mob of Trump supporters. Trump has...

By banning firearms from a long list of "sensitive places," the state is copying a policy that federal judges have repeatedly rejected. A California law that is scheduled to take effect on January 1 will impose a host of new restrictions on public possession of firearms. That may seem counterintuitive, since Senate Bill 2 is the state legislature's response to the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which upheld the Second Amendment right to carry guns for self-defense outside the home. But California, like several other states with discretionary carry-permit...

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, has died. O’Connor was 93 years old. This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

The Supreme Court told Biden he cannot forgive student loans at taxpayer expense for 800,000+ people, but he’s doing it anyway. He’s circumventing the law. Not only is he breaking the spirit of the law, but he’s bragging about it to the people who benefited so he can get their votes. Axios reported: Exclusive: Biden emails 800k student loan borrowers about forgiven debt More than 800,000 student loan borrowers are set to receive a message from President Biden Tuesday afternoon. Why it matters: The email, shared in advance with Axios, is a direct appeal from the president to beneficiaries of...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently halted Florida’s “Protection of Children Act,” a law designed to prevent children from attending sexually explicit live performances, including drag shows. This ruling, coming after a federal district court sided with an Orlando drag bar, Hamburger Mary’s, marks a significant setback in efforts to safeguard minors from potentially harmful content. SB 1438, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, criminalizes allowing children to witness sexually explicit live performances.

The Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court appears skeptical of the Securities and Exchange Commission's powers to conduct in-house adjudications without juries in a case that could disrupt the administrative state. Justices heard oral arguments on Wednesday involving hedge fund manager and conservative radio jockey George Jarkesy, whom the SEC fined and barred from the industry after determining he had committed securities fraud. In a bid to avoid commission-appointed administrative law judges deciding his case behind a bureaucratic curtain, Jarkesy appealed to the federal courts, arguing the agency's procedures infringed on his Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. Jarkesy...

Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa, endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, giving his campaign a boost as he goes all in to try to win the first state in the presidential primary cycle. "You need a president who's gonna surround themselves with the best and brightest people versus having a hard time attracting them again. And someone who's actually going to do what they say they're going to do. And I just think he's got the spine to do it. And I think he's got the experience to win for us," Vander Plaats said on...

comment on their decision to leave in place state court rulings affirming Chauvin’s conviction and 22 1/2-year sentence, San Diego Union-Tribune reported. In October, attorneys representing Chauvin appealed to the Supreme Court to review his case. This appeal was based on the refusal of a Minnesota trial court to change the venue of the trial and sequester the jury. Chauvin argued that holding the trial in Minneapolis violated his right to a fair trial. He argued this was due to extensive pretrial media coverage and the potential for violent protests and riots if he were found not guilty.

Planned Parenthood Southeast has appointed its first nonbinary racial minority to serve as president and CEO as the regional abortion provider has lost ground since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. PPSE announced Tuesday the appointment of Carol McDonald, a biological female who uses they/them pronouns, as head of the regional chapter. McDonald joined Planned Parenthood of Georgia in the 1990s, working on political mobilization efforts before joining the national staff of Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 2006. She took a leave from the organization to manage political and surrogate relations for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign....

Majority Democrats on a Senate committee on Thursday abandoned their work, which was targeting conservatives on the Supreme Court, when GOP members suggested subpoenas for the staff of leftist Justice Sonia Sotomayor... Senate Judiciary Committee “punted” on votes scheduled regarding the issuance of subpoenas for GOP donors Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow. Sen Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has accused the two of “stonewalling” an investigation into the high court “that seeks to determine whether two Republican-appointed justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, acted with any impropriety,” the report said. The confrontation was launched when ProPublica said they helped facilitate trips for...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly adjourned a meeting on Thursday without holding an expected vote on subpoenas for two conservatives who have helped arrange luxury travel and other benefits for Supreme Court justices. The panel’s Democratic chairman, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, gaveled out after Republicans on the committee made clear they would call for subpoena votes on a raft of Democratic officials and others, a protest of the planned subpoenas for Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the panel, warned majority Democrats that...

Democrats hit the brakes on plans to subpoena conservative legal scholar Leonard Leo and billionaire Harlan Crow during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, scoring a win for the integrity of the Supreme Court. The move came after Republican Ranking Member Lindsey Graham warned Chairman Dick Durbin and other Democrats that their efforts to intimidate friends and acquaintances of conservative Supreme Court Justices, specifically Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito under the guise of "ethics reform," would backfire. "I promise you, everything that was working well with the committee is now in jeopardy," Graham warned. "You’re going to...

Joe Scarborough: born again pro-abortion-rights warrior! Who would have thought it? The former Republican congressman from Florida's conservative panhandle, the guy who got a 100% rating from the National Right To Life Committee, and a 0% rating from Planned Parenthood, now sounds more like a NARAL spokeswoman. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough conveniently put into the mouth of an immigrant friend one of the oldest, tritest, and least logical, pro-abortion lines: "if you're against abortion, don't have one."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared to side with the Biden administration's appeal of a lower court ruling that struck a federal statute barring people under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a gun, teeing up a possible narrow ruling over the law in question. United States v. Rahimi is the high court’s first major Second Amendment case since Justice Clarence Thomas and the Republican-appointed majority ruled 6-3 that firearms regulations must be consistent with the nation's "historical tradition." That case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, featured a successful challenge to the Empire State's handgun...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a case involving the Trump-era ban on "bump stocks" that was initiated in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting. The justices agreed to hear arguments early next year over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) rule, which was implemented in 2017. The case pertains to whether the Department of Justice, which oversees the ATF, followed federal law in changing the regulation around bump stocks, which are able to increase the rate of fire in some semiautomatic weapons. Federal appeals courts have come to different decisions...

A political activist’s desire to register a suggestive phrase targeting Donald Trump’s anatomy and policies is at the center of a Supreme Court case being heard Wednesday that will test the limits of the First Amendment.Trump is not a party to the case, but his name will likely be tossed around constantly during oral arguments as the justices weigh whether a federal trademark statute that prevented the activist from registering “Trump Too Small” as a slogan for t-shirts without the former president’s explicit permission runs afoul of the First Amendment.“The mark criticizes Trump by using a double entendre, invoking...

As expressed in a comment and somewhat revised here, the premise behind the typical justificatory arguments for abortion (“respecting individual autonomy and the right to make decisions about one's own body,” “negative consequences on public health,” “the freedom to choose what's best for them”) is that the unborn at any time of abortion is not a human person, even though it will be rather quickly very manifest to be one indeed. Even if someone you invited into your car or house secretly brings a child with them without your consent, then you simply do not have the right to exterminate...