Free Republic

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the case of Nicholas Sandmann, a former Kentucky high school student who sued several news outlets for allegedly libelous coverage of his viral encounter with a Native American activist in 2019. Justices decided not to take up Sandmann’s petition against several outlets, including ABC News, The New York Times, Gannett, and others, leaving in place a lower court’s dismissal of the massive libel suit. The former student argued he was defamed by reports about his confrontation with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., five years ago....

After years of assembling datapoints around the potential for the Supreme Court to be compromised, it was the discovery of Mary McCord’s husband Sheldon Snook deep in the office of Chief Justice John Roberts that finally sealed the deal for me personally. Yes, the Supreme Court is compromised. Quick Context. Mary McCord was the architect of all Trump targeting efforts. The FISA on Carter Page, the weaponization of the DOJ-NSD, the installation of Michael Atkinson as Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), the companion to Sally Yates in the Flynn targeting, lead staff for the Schiff/Nadler impeachment effort, later appointment by...

The Supreme Court is giving the Navy a freer hand determining what job assignments it gives to 35 sailors who sued after refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The high court in a brief order Friday sided with the Biden administration and said that while the lawsuit plays out, the Navy may consider the sailors’ vaccination status in making deployment, assignment and other operational decisions. The group that sued includes mostly Navy SEALs. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there was a “simple overarching reason” that he agreed with the court’s decision. The...

U.S. Supreme Court denies Trump's request to block the release of White House records from Jan. 6 "select committee" by an 8-1 vote.

SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN OSHA VACCINE MANDATEBREAKING: The Supreme Court BLOCKS the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine-or-test requirement for large workplaces. The court ALLOWS a vaccine mandate for workers at federally funded health care facilities to take effect nationwide.— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 13, 2022

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court turned down emergency requests by New York healthcare workers for a religious exemption from state requirements to vaccinate against Covid-19. A federal appeals court in New York previously denied the workers’ requests. The court denied the requests in brief written orders. As is typical for such emergency actions, the majority didn’t explain its thinking. Three conservative justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch—said they would have allowed the exemptions. In October, the court denied a similar application from Maine healthcare workers seeking exemption from their state’s vaccination requirements, which lower courts had rejected. The same three conservatives...

By Andrew Chung (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected challenges brought by a group of Christian doctors and nurses and an organization that promotes vaccine skepticism to New York's refusal to allow religious exemptions to the state's mandate that healthcare workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. Acting in two cases, the justices denied emergency requests for an injunction requiring the state to permit religious exemptions while litigation over the mandate's legality continues in lower courts. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted the injunction. The Supreme Court previously rejected other challenges...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an emergency appeal of a vaccine requirement imposed on Maine health care workers, the latest defeat for opponents of vaccine mandates. It was the first time the Supreme Court weighed in on a statewide vaccine mandate. It previously rejected challenges of vaccine requirements for New York City teachers and Indiana University staff and students. Justice Stephen Breyer rejected the emergency appeal but left the door open to try again as the clock ticks on Maine’s mandate. The state will begin enforcing it Oct. 29. The Maine vaccine requirement that was put in...

BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday against hearing an appeal of a decision that found Gov. Charlie Baker did not overstep his authority with sweeping orders to close businesses and limit gatherings to control the coronavirus early in the pandemic. The nation’s highest court announced without comment Monday that it would not consider the appeal. The lawsuit argued that Baker had no authority to issue public health-related orders under the state’s Civil Defense Act, which it said was designed to protect the state from foreign invasions, insurrections, and catastrophic events like hurricanes and fires. The Massachusetts Supreme...

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from a group of New York City public school teachers to block the city's coronavirus vaccine mandate.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that they did not hear President Donald Trump’s 2020 election case because it did not meet “normal criteria.” Anchor Chris Wallace said, “One of your arguments against seeing the court’s political is the fact that it refused to even hear the appeals from the Trump campaign about the 2020 election. Didn’t even hear it them.” ......SNIP...... Wallace asked, “Why was that?” Breyer said, “Why was it? Because they didn’t bring a case, I guess, that met the normal criteria for being heard. When we decide to...

As you may know, during the current pandemic, since the enactment of the so-called “CARES Act” in March 2020, there has been in effect, in various forms, a federal “moratorium” on evictions of rental tenants from their apartments. Thus some landlords have now gone well over a year without getting paid what they are owed, and with no access to any legal remedy. The most recent version of the “moratorium” expired on July 31 (Saturday). This version had been promulgated by the CDC on its own authority, without specific authorization from Congress. On Sunday (August 1) the Democratic Congressional leadership...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday issued a new moratorium on evictions that would last until October 3, ending some of the political pressure being placed on President Joe Biden. The new moratorium could help keep millions in their homes as the coronavirus’ delta variant has spread and states have been slow to release federal rental aid. It would temporarily halt evictions in counties with “substantial and high levels” of virus transmissions and would cover areas where 90 percent of the U.S. population lives. The announcement was something of a reversal for the Biden administration after saying...

The Supreme Court held that the CDC can continue to impose a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures due to the Covid lockdowns causing millions to not pay rent or mortgages yesterday. It was made possible by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the so-called “conservative” Justice who sided with the four progressives.According to POLITICO [emphasis added]:The association had asked the court to act on an emergency basis to vacate a stay on a lower-court decision overturning the ban, saying the “stay will prolong the severe financial burdens borne by landlords under the moratorium for the past nine months.”The Centers for Disease Control and...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to lift the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s ban on residential evictions, which expires at the end of next month. The court voted 5-4 against lifting the ban put in place to help families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett said they would grant the application, which was requested by a group of landlords. Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the justices who declined the application because he noted that the moratorium is set to expire in a few weeks, on July 31. "In my view,...

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a Christian florist from Washington state fined refusing to make a floral arrangement for a same-sex wedding because she felt it went against her religious beliefs about marriage. In doing so, the Washington Supreme Court ruling against the Christian florist remains intact. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch each said the court should have taken the case. Though the case dates back to 2013, religious liberty legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom said the fight to defend Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Richland, Washington,...

"Progressives have called for Breyer to step down so Biden could nominate his successor."

George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathon Turley has posited that recent unanimous Supreme Court rulings may be the court sending a message to politicians. Facing threats to pack the Supreme Court and calls for Justice Stephen Breyer to resign, Turley believes the court is making a rare show of unity. Apparently, the logic is that if they show that they’re not ideological (I know, don’t laugh), the Democrats will understand that packing the court won’t make any difference. They’re trying to validate Chief Justice John Robert’s claim that there are no “Obama judges” or “Trump judges.” There’s just one...

Justice Samuel Alito has drawn attention for his fiery criticism of Supreme Court rulings, with some court watchers especially struck by the degree of barely concealed hostility he directed at fellow conservative justices. Alito voiced opposition last week as the court, now with six conservative justices and three liberals, handed a narrow win to a Catholic charity and spared ObamaCare from a GOP challenge. The two decisions signaled the court may not be moving as far or as fast to the right as some expected. “My guess is that he's frustrated with what appear to be political compromises to reach...

For decades, going back at least as far as the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that concocted a constitutional right to abortion, conservatives have placed a great emphasis on winning back culture war ground through judicial nominations. As a consequence of that, Republicans have consistently told political pollsters that the Supreme Court is their top voting issue at a far higher clip than Democrats have. The Court, for instance, was certainly the decisive issue in the hotly contested 2016 presidential election. As the current Court term winds down -- one featuring a putative 6-3 "conservative" majority, including three new nominees...