Free Republic

In a major victory for cable companies and telcos that raises concerns about the Federal Communications Commission's regulatory authority in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the agency’s net neutrality rules. The rules require broadband operators to treat all internet traffic equally and banned them from giving preferential treatment to some sites by speeding up or slowing down consumer access. The FCC had implemented net neutrality rules under former President Barack Obama, which were then dropped during the Trump administration. Last April the FCC voted 3-2, along party...

A federal court has blocked the Federal Communications Commission‘s reinstatement of net neutrality rules that expanded government oversight over the internet. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’s ruling against the FCC on Thursday came after the federal agency voted earlier this year to reinstate former President Barack Obama’s net neutrality regulations. “The final rule implicates a major question, and the commission has failed to satisfy the high bar for imposing such regulations,” the court wrote. “Net neutrality is likely a major question requiring clear congressional authorization.” The court has paused the regulation, saying it will pick up the case...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:From Michigan Fair ElectionsLawmakers claim standing to sue state government for infringing on their constitutional rights when it used ballot initiatives to change election laws.July 2, 2024. Yesterday eleven Michigan Legislators filed their principal brief in an appeal to the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming their constitutional rights have been violated. Under the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 4, (“Elections Clause”), state legislatures are given the constitutional power and authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of federal elections.In 2018 and 2022 amendments to the Michigan Constitution altered election laws through a process that...

DETROIT (AP) — An appeals court is raising major questions about the trial of two key figures in a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor — and putting federal prosecutors on the defensive as the government tries to preserve the extraordinary guilty verdicts.After hearing arguments in May, the court took the uncommon step of asking for more written briefs on the impact of a trial judge’s decision to bar evidence that might have supported claims of entrapment made by Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr.Fox and Croft are in prison for leading a conspiracy to try to snatch Gov. Gretchen Whitmer...

Tennessee and Kentucky can continue to ban gender-affirming care for young transgender people while legal challenges against those state laws proceed, federal appeals judges ruled. In a 2-1 decision by a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel late Thursday, the majority wrote that elected lawmakers made “precise cost-benefit decisions” in instituting the bans and “did not trigger any reason for judges to second-guess them.” The laws were passed by Republican majorities in both states. “Prohibiting citizens and legislatures from offering their perspectives on high-stakes medical policies, in which compassion for the child points in both directions, is not something...

Nick Sandmann, who at the time was a Covington Catholic student, appears in a screengrab taken from a video filed as an exhibit in federal court. A federal appellate panel in a 2-1 decision Wednesday denied former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann’s bid to revive libel claims against mainstream media outlets over their coverage of his 2019 encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life. In July 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Jimmy Carter appointee sitting in the Eastern District of Kentucky, granted summary judgment and threw out Sandmann’s...

In Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company, (6th Cir., March 14, 2023), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals held that employees of a company that sells food products to the federal government may not assert a 1st Amendment free-exercise claim against the company for denying them a religious exemption from a COVID vaccine mandate imposed by the company after the federal government required government contractors to do so. The court said in part: Constitutional guarantees conventionally apply only to entities that exercise sovereign power, such as federal, state, or local governments.... Smucker’s may be a big company. But it is...

The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Thursday affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the vaccine mandate for federal contract workers is unconstitutional. The majority opinion stated that a broad interpretation of the mandate could provide the president “nearly unlimited authority to introduce requirements into federal contracts.” The court said Biden wanted it “to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would permit him to unilaterally impose a healthcare decision on one-fifth of all employees in the United States. We decline to do so.” Judge Kurt Engelhardt, writing for the majority, demonstrated the fallacy of the government’s...

In Ermold v. Davis, (6th Cir., Sept. 29, 2022), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Kentucky federal district court decision that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis does not have qualified immunity in a suit against her for stopping the issuance of all marriage licenses to avoid issuing licenses to same-sex couples. The court said in part: [P]laintiffs have not only “alleged” but also now “shown” that Davis violated their constitutional right to marry.... And, as we held three years ago, that right was “clearly established in Obergefell.”The court held that insofar as Davis has raised a free...

Andre Mathis, President Biden’s nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, has had his driver’s license suspended on three separate occasions. Mathis has a history of habitual speeding, and his driver’s license was suspended on three separate occasions, according to state records. Mathis drove on a suspended license during all three periods. Driving on a suspended license is punishable by up to 6 months in jail and/or a $500 fine. Mathis explained his three license suspensions in a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I want to assure the Committee that I am a...

At today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) questioned Andre B. Mathis, nominee to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit. [6 min Video]

A federal appeals court upheld a decision to temporarily block the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors in three states.A judge in Louisville, Kentucky, issued a ruling blocking the mandate for Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee in November. And on Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in a 2–1 ruling.The Sixth Appeals Court majority wrote in its Wednesday order that the injunction was upheld “because the government has established none of the showings required to obtain a stay.”States are “imminently threatened in their proprietary capacities should they renew those existing contracts (thus triggering the...

This afternoon a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the Biden Administration's request for a stay of a lower court injunction barring enforcement of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for employees of federal contractors in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Judge Bush wrote for the court in Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Biden, joined by Judge Suhrenreich. Judge Cole (who recently announced his intent to take senior status upon the confirmation of his successor) dissented.Here is how Judge Bush summarizes his opinion:In 1949, Congress passed a statute called the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act ("Property...

The appeals went to Kavanaugh because of geography – he oversees emergency appeals from the Sixth Circuit. The Supreme Court is not considering the full validity of the OSHA ETS on vaccines. It is only considering whether to temporarily halt the implementation of the rule while litigation in lower courts decides the issue on the merits. If the rule goes into effect when the Biden administration wants it to, tens of millions of workers in businesses across the country will be subject to the mandate and forced to either get a vaccination or submit to a weekly COVID testing regime....

A federal appeals court has reinstated the Biden administration’s vaccine and testing requirement for private businesses that covers about 80 million American workers. The ruling by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati lifted a November injunction that had blocked the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which applies to businesses with at least 100 workers. In the decision Friday, the 6th Circuit noted that OSHA has historical precedent for using wide discretion to ensure worker safety and “demonstrated the pervasive danger that COVID-19 poses to workers—unvaccinated workers in particular—in their workplaces.”

After being struck down by lower courts, an appeals court has reinstated Joe Biden’s OSHA vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. Around 80 million Americans will be directly affected by this ruling. After the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had the authority to Impose the mandate due to take effect Jan. 4, all eyes turn now to the Supreme Court where the final decision will be made. According to Just The News: “Given OSHA’s clear and exercised authority to regulate viruses, OSHA necessarily has the authority...

A federal appeals court panel on Friday allowed President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for larger private employers to move ahead. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a decision by a federal judge in a separate court that had paused the mandate nationwide. The rule from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was to take effect Jan. 4. With Friday’s ruling, it’s not clear when the requirement may be put in place. Republican-led states joined with conservative groups, business associations and some individual businesses to push back against the requirement...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declined Wednesday to hear “en banc” the case against President Joe Biden’s rule forcing large private employers to vaccinate or COVID-19 test their employees. The Daily Wire, first to challenge the Biden mandate in the Sixth Circuit, is the lead plaintiff in the case against the federal rule after the Sixth Circuit was picked by lottery to consolidate and oversee the rule’s numerous legal challenges. The Daily Wire and others petitioned the court to hear the case “en banc,” or in front of all 16 judges on the court, for a vote on the...

Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors’ employees nationwide was shot down by a federal judge in Georgia on Tuesday. Joe Biden and his White House’s legally questionable vaccine mandate for federal contractors’ was halted nationwide by a federal judge on Tuesday, it was confirmed this morning. Set to take effect on January 4, 2022, the mandate applied to nearly one quarter of the entire United States workforce, as the mandate targeted all companies that do business with the federal government such as Microsoft, Google, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors. This latest vaccine mandate shutdown comes after Kentucky federal judge’s...

The Sixth Circuit Court has denied the federal government’s motion to transfer the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) vaccine-or-test requirement lawsuit to a different court, while also rejecting the White House’s bid to dissolve a stay on the mandate, delivering a blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to press ahead with implementation. In a Dec. 3 ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court denied the government’s motion to transfer the case to the Fifth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit, while also rejecting as “moot” the Biden administration’s attempt to overturn a hold on the mandate. OSHA on Nov. 5 published an...