Free Republic

Topline A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s buyout offer to federal civilian employees from taking effect Thursday, hours before the deadline the administration set for more than 2 million employees to decide whether to take resignation packages with pay through September. Timeline Feb. 6: A federal judge in Massachusetts pushed back the deadline for employees to accept the offer, initially set for 11:59 p.m. Thursday, until at least Monday in response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers unions that argued the administration could not guarantee pay beyond March 14 expiration date for the existing budget. Feb. 5:...

A federal judge paused Thursday’s deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer while more proceedings on the program’s legality play out. The government will send a notice to the employees informing them that Thursday’s deadline is on hold. Before the judge’s ruling, eligible federal workers had until 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, which will generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September. The pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several...

With just hours remaining for federal workers to decide whether to take the Trump administration's offer to resign from their jobs now while keeping their pay and benefits through Sept. 30, a federal judge in Massachusetts will weigh a request from labor unions to issue a temporary restraining order and stay today's deadline. U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee, will preside over a virtual hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. ET. The lawsuit, filed by the legal group Democracy Forward on behalf of unions representing more than 800,000 civil servants, alleges that the Trump administration's resignation offer...

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...

Wearing a MAGA hat represents a person exercising his or her right to free speech, a U.S. appeals court has ruled. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge and ruled in favor of a Washington middle school teacher who claimed that a principal violated his free-speech rights by threatening discipline if he continued to wear a "Make America Great Again" hat to training sessions. "That some may not like the political message being conveyed is par for the course and cannot itself be a basis for finding disruption of a kind that...

A Florida prosecutor suspended by Ron DeSantis for defying a new 15-week abortion law says a federal judge’s decision to send his reinstatement appeal to trial means a reckoning is coming for the state’s Republican governor. Andrew Warren, a Democrat, was removed as Hillsborough county state attorney on 4 August after saying he would not enforce the abortion ban or prosecute providers of gender transition treatment for young people. DeSantis cited Warren’s alleged “woke agenda” in reasons for his decision. At a hearing in Tallahassee on Monday, Judge Robert Hinkle denied motions from DeSantis to dismiss Warren’s lawsuit, and another...

The Supreme Court agreed on June 21 to hear an appeal from a Romanian-American businessman who was fined $50,000 for failing to file tax forms on time, but whose penalty ballooned to $2.72 million when an appeals court ruled the fine should be imposed based on the number of bank accounts he held, instead of on the number of forms he failed to file.The Biden administration, which wants to beef up enforcement efforts by the IRS, favors the larger penalty and had asked the high court to refuse to take the case. The case is Bittner v. United States of...

A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday the law violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms and a San Diego judge should have blocked what it called "an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles" for young adults.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, ruled that a hunting license requirement for purchases of rifles or shotguns by adults under 21 who are not in the military or law enforcement was reasonable A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ruled that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional, a move gun-rights advocates hope will pave the way for similar rulings in other courts. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law violates the Second Amendment and that a San Diego judge should have blocked what is called...

LOS ANGELES -- A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday the law violates the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and a San Diego judge should have blocked what it called "an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles" for young adults.

Former President Carter is taking the rare step of weighing in on judicial proceedings, saying that an appeals court is misinterpreting a conservation law he signed. On Monday, Carter filed a briefing chastising a ruling that upheld a Trump-era decision to build a road through a national wildlife refuge in order to enable medical evacuations nearby.

A judge on Tuesday hit former White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman with a $61,585 penalty for ignoring her duty to file a financial disclosure report after she was fired from her post as a communications aide to President Donald Trump in December 2017. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon rejected Manigault Newman’s claims that her firing was so abrupt that she did not have a chance to collect her personal files, which contained financial details she said were necessary for the filing.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge has again ruled against a northern Virginia school system that he found guilty of discriminating against Asian American students when it overhauled its admissions policies at a highly selective high school. For decades, Black and Hispanic students have been woefully underrepresented in the student body. In the wake of criticism over a lack of diversity, the school board scrapped a standardized test that had been at the heart of the admissions process. A parents' group sued in federal court, arguing that Asian Americans, who constituted more than 70% of the student body at TJ,...

A federal judge Friday ruled that admissions changes at the nation’s top public high school, which were put in place to pursue “equity,” are discriminatory against Asian Americans. “The undisputed evidence demonstrates precisely how the Board’s actions caused, and will continue to cause, a substantial racial impact,” U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton wrote in his decision. “The Board instituted a system that does not treat all applicants to TJ [Thomas Jefferson High School] equally.”

Alexandria, Virginia; February 25, 2022: Today, a federal judge ruled that Fairfax County school officials violated the law by changing admissions requirements at the nation’s top public school to deliberately reduce the number of Asian-American students enrolled. Last March, a coalition of parents, students, alumni, and community members filed a lawsuit challenging admissions changes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ). “This is a monumental win for parents and students here in Fairfax County, but also for equal treatment in education across the country,” said PLF attorney Erin Wilcox. “We hope this ruling sends the message that...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that a Virginia school system illegally discriminated against Asian Americans when it overhauled the admissions policies at an elite public school. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton found that impermissible “racial balancing” was at the core of the plan to overhaul admissions to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as “TJ.” The school routinely ranks as the best or one of the best public schools in the country, and slots at the school are highly competitive. In 2020, the Fairfax County School Board significantly revamped the...

Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Friday ordered former pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli to pay $64.6 million for illegally ballooning the price of a drug to treat parasitic diseases. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York also barred Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life. "Banning an individual from an entire industry and limiting his future capacity to make a living in that field is a serious remedy and must be done with care and only if equity demands," she wrote in her ruling. "Shkreli's egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running and ultimately dangerous illegal...

The first Capitol riot defendant to plead guilty to assaulting an officer has been sentenced to 41 months in prison, the harshest sentence yet imposed for the attack. Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced ex-MMA fighter Scott Fairlamb to approximately three and a half years in prison and three years probation for assaulting an officer while he was part of the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 in support of former President Trump.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected efforts by four Democratic-leaning U.S. states to overturn former Republican President Donald Trump's decision to limit federal deductions on state and local taxes. In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the federal government had authority to impose a $10,000 cap on the state and local taxes that households' itemizing deductions could write off their federal returns. The decision is a defeat for New York, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, which challenged the so-called SALT cap implemented as part of a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul in 2017....

Capitol rioter's hearing was delayed hours before he was scheduled to be sentenced after videos surfaced on social media in which he is alleged to be attacking a police officer. The man, Robert Maurice Reeder, 55, of Maryland, had been set to appear Wednesday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan after he accepted a plea agreement in connection with his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot. Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Reeder to a fine and time in prison. The group also posted the videos on its Twitter page. In a 21-second clip, a man the group...