Free Republic

A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump Administration from firing intel agency officials who worked on DEI programs. US District Judge Anthony Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, said the fired officials are entitled to appeal the firings and seek reassignment for other jobs in the agency. Last month Judge Trenga rejected a bid to block the Trump Admin from firing the 19 intelligence officials. “In effect, they are at-will employees,” Judge Trenga said last month during a hearing, according to Politico. .... Snip.... Reuters reported: A U.S. judge on Monday blocked the firing of 19 intelligence officers who...

Anyone with common sense can tell when there’s a setup for a big problem, and the Supreme Court keeps setting things up. ... We have watched the fruition of Obama’s diabolical change unfold for years. College tuitions have soared, causing these loans to become a yoke around the neck of young adults, delinquency has become commonplace, and ... my perplexity in 2005 when I found myself wondering why G.W. Bush had appointed Roberts, the “new guy,” directly into being Chief Justice of our Supreme Court rather than elevating a more experienced judge to that position. At the time, he seemed...

A second federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Trump’s ban on transgender troops. In January President Trump signed the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order and the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive orders, which direct every element of the U.S. military to “operate free from any preference based on race or sex” and root out gender insanity and made up pronoun usage, respectively. US District Judge Benjamin Hale Settle in Washington State, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on Thursday evening. Judge Settle, a George W. Bush appointee, said the Trump DOJ’s arguments have not been persuasive.

Judge Anthony J. Trenga, an appointee of George W. Bush, has temporarily blocked President Trump’s move to clean house in the intelligence community—specifically targeting agents involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives that have compromised national security in favor of leftist ideology. This ruling comes after a group of anonymous intelligence officers, who had been temporarily reassigned to roles implementing controversial Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) programs, have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of...

Multiple lawmakers visited the Washington, D.C., jail to demand the release of pardoned January 6 rioters. Conservative House Freedom Caucus (HFC) members Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Chip Roy of Texas and Eli Crane of Arizona were among some of the MAGA-friendly members that visited the jail Tuesday. 'We hope they are going to be released shortly,' Roy said speaking outside of the jail on the conservative show Real America's Voice. 'A pardon is a pardon.' MAGA diehard Lauren Boebert even offered the soon-to-be released defendants a private tour of the Capitol. 'These men have already paid too much time, more...

Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Tuesday warned that judges nationwide are under increasing threat from violence, intimidation, disinformation and officials threatening to defy lawful court decisions. Roberts said that robust criticism of judicial rulings is part of American civic life, but that some recent attacks had gone too far in threatening to undermine the independence necessary for judges to rule impartially. “Violence, intimidation, and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our Republic, and are wholly unacceptable,” Roberts wrote in his annual report on the state of the nation’s judiciary. The justice’s message follows...

A federal judge on Friday ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy may continue to consider race when evaluating candidates to attend the elite military school, even after the U.S. Supreme Court last year barred civilian colleges from employing similar affirmative action policies.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy can continue considering race in its admissions process, ruling that military cohesion and other national security factors mean the officer training school should not be subjected to the same standards as civilian universities. During a two-week bench trial in September, attorneys for the school argued that prioritizing diversity in the military makes it stronger, more effective and more widely respected. The group behind the case, Students for Fair Admissions, also brought the lawsuit challenging affirmative action that resulted in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday stopped the federal government from destroying a fence of razor wire that Texas installed along the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from entering the country illegally. The ruling, criticized by activists, came hours before Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told President-elect Donald Trump that immigrants headed to the U.S. are being “taken care of” in her country. Texas had placed more than 29 miles of wire in the Eagle Pass area by last September when Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over Border Patrol agents’ alleged illegal destruction of state...

A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech. The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton. Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers...

"about 30 trucks with armed terrorists in them, with cameras and Hamas and Palestinian flags" That's some of the testimony from Israeli military reservist Amit Yerushalmi... A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Toropets, Russia early Wednesday... The Russian military in Syria says a US drone came dangerously close to one of its warplanes over Homs... North Korea firing multiple short-range missiles on Wednesday morning... For a third night in a row an overflow at a reception center for migrants seeking asylum in the Netherlands... A US Appeals Court upholding the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell in connection her activities linked to...

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...

Officials tried to use a novel interpretation of tax law to expand the reach of Title IX regulations. This ruling put a stop to that. . A federal court of appeals ruling last month protects nonprofits (including private schools and homeschools) from federal overreach in the context of Title IX regulations. Schools that receive government money have to abide by Title IX, but the court found that having 501(c)(3) status is not enough to put a private school into that category. The ruling means private schools cannot be subject to Title IX solely because of their status with the IRS....

Despite being slapped down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for ordering a Jan. 6 probationer’s computer use be monitored for so-called “disinformation,” a senior federal judge in Washington D.C. appears ready to reimpose the restriction on Daniel Goodwyn of Corinth, Texas. Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered Mr. Goodwyn to “show cause” for why the computer monitoring provision should not be reimposed. Judge Walton set a June 4 hearing date on the issue in Washington.

Oh, where to begin in the latest episode of “America’s Judicial Rollercoaster” featuring the audacious blockade by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against Texas's gallant effort to enforce its own borders? Yes, you heard that right. In a move that could only be concocted in the wildest dreams of a liberal screenplay writer, the appellate court decided to thumb its nose at the U.S. Supreme Court. Why? Simply to prevent Texas from using Senate Bill 4 to do the unfathomable: arrest and deport illegal immigrants. Gasp! The horror of a state taking steps to protect its citizens and...

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that an enhancement charge used against Jan. 6 defendants to lengthen their sentences couldn’t apply to the Capitol protest. In a unanimous opinion from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, said prosecutors’ use of a “substantial interference with the administration of justice” charge to enhance the prison sentence of Larry Brock was too broad. “We hold that the ‘administration of justice’ enhancement does not apply to interference with the legislative process of certifying electoral votes,” wrote Judge Millett.... The ruling could affect other Jan. 6 defendants who...

The former Kentucky clerk who refused to grant a gay couple a marriage license must pay an additional $260,104 to the couple, a federal judge ruled last week. David Ermold and David Moore sued former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in 2015 after she declined to issue the couple a marriage license because doing so would violate “God’s definition of marriage” and her religious beliefs as a Christian. The additional fees Davis must pay are on top of the $100,000 in damages she was ordered to pay Ermold and Moore in September after losing the lawsuit the couple brought. Davis’s...

Less than a week after a Del Rio-based federal judge ruled against Texas in the ongoing fight over the state’s razor wire, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused that decision while it reviews the case. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday temporarily halted a lower court order that gave Border Patrol agents legal cover to continue cutting concertina wire that Texas has installed on the banks of the Rio Grande. U.S. District Judge Alia Moses of Del Rio on Wednesday ruled against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, which wanted the judge to order Border Patrol...

A federal appeals court has set a mid-January deadline for the Louisiana state legislature to draw up a new congressional map, which comes in a long-running legal dispute that included a lower court ruling that found the current map likely unfairly diluted the power of black voters. A three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its order on Nov. 10, requiring the state legislature to pass a new map by Jan. 15, 2024. The appeals court's order notes that, if the state legislature fails to adopt a new map by the deadline, then the lower court should...

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Virginia this week delivered a message to Congress, the White House and developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline: not so fast. Pennsylvania-based Equitrans Midstream’s roughly 300-mile pipeline, envisioned to bring shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica in Appalachia to markets in the Southeast, was fast-tracked as part of the Biden administration’s deal with Congress to suspend the debt limit in June. It’s also supported by Pennsylvania congressmen, including U.S. Reps. John Joyce, R-Blair, and Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, who joined U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., to introduce the legislation in May that helped...