Free Republic

Oct 3 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Joe Biden exceeded his authority by withdrawing large areas along U.S. coastlines from future offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled on Thursday.U.S. District Judge James Cain in Lake Charles, Louisiana, sided with Republican states and oil and gas industry groups that sued to block Biden's move to protect all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska.Biden, on one of his final days in office, used his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf...

ATLANTA – A federal judge has upheld a portion of a controversial 2022 Georgia election law dealing with absentee ballots. In a 50-page ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee declared that the state had a “compelling governmental interest” in restricting the distribution of absentee ballot applications by third-party voting rights activists. He ruled that the state was justified in enacting restrictions aimed at “reducing voter confusion, enhancing voter confidence and increasing electoral efficiency.” The absentee ballot restrictions were part of a broad overhaul of Georgia election procedures the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed in 2021 after Democrat Joe Biden carried...

A federal appeals court late Tuesday ruled President Trump can’t invoke a wartime law to swiftly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members, a key legal tool the administration has used to implement its immigration crackdown. Trump first invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March to remove Venezuelans the administration accuses of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Tuesday’s ruling blocks Trump from using the law against migrants detained in northern parts of Texas, and the battle could now return to the Supreme Court. The divided 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found no “invasion” or “predatory incursion”...

A federal judge in Maine declined on Monday to block the government from stripping Medicaid funding from one of Maine’s largest abortion providers, finding that to do so would override “the will of the people as expressed by Congress.” At issue is a provision of the tax and spending bill Congress passed in July that would deny abortion providers Medicaid funding even for health services other than performing abortions. In a blunt, 19-page opinion, Judge Lance E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Maine wrote that particularly after the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade,...

Wyoming and 10 other states’ claims that giant investment companies conspired to drive coal production down and drive prices up — increasing people’s energy costs — are at least plausible enough to keep a lawsuit alive, a judge has ruled. Wyoming filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas in late November against Blackrock Inc., State Street Corp. and Vanguard Group Inc. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led the litigation. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia and Wyoming also signed the complaint. The states allege the three massive investment companies acquired substantial stockholdings in...

United States District Judge Nancy E. Brasel sentenced Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, age 36, to 28 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in a $300 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally program to feed hungry kids during the COVID-19 pandemic. Farah helped orchestrate the largest known COVID-19 fraud scheme called Feeding Our Future in Minnesota. Farah and his co-defendants stole more than $47 million by claiming to serve 18 million meals to kids at more than 30 food distribution sites. Farah was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $47,920,514. He's...

A federal judge abused his authority in pursuing contempt proceedings against Trump administration officials for removing alleged Venezuelan gang members from the United States in violation of a court order, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was split 2-1, with two Trump appointees in the majority and an Obama appointee dissenting. The decision overturns Washington-based Chief Judge James Boasberg's finding of probable cause that officials could be held in criminal contempt.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled Texas can enforce a law requiring ID numbers for mail-in ballots. A three-judge panel unanimously overturned a lower court’s block on the state’s mail-in ballot requirements. The three judges included: Judge James Ho (Trump), Judge Don Willett (Trump), and Judge Patrick Higginbotham (Reagan). “We have no difficulty concluding that this ID number requirement fully complies with a provision of federal law known by the parties as the materiality provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” the judges ruled. “The ID number requirement is obviously designed to confirm that each mail-in ballot...

In a 6-3 ruling late last month, Justice Amy Coney Barrett minced no words when it came to so-called “universal injunctions,” lower-court rulings that extended far beyond that court’s jurisdiction. “It is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive,” Barrett wrote in the decision. “That goes for judges, too,” Barrett added. “When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.” That decision, by the way, did not decide the merits of the case in...

A federal appeals court has ruled that New Jersey’s ban on private immigration detention contracts is unconstitutional, dealing a blow to state leaders and advocates who have long fought to curb U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's footprint in the Garden State. In the 2-1 decision, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals found that New Jersey’s 2021 law blocking ICE from contracting with private companies unlawfully interfered with federal immigration enforcement, in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause.

It’s been an interesting week for the Ninth-Circus. First they slapped down a former Supreme Court Justice’s brother’s attempt to take control of the California National Guard away from the President of the United states. Today, in another 3-0 panel opinion, the court has ruled that limiting Californians to purchasing only one gun a month is a violation of their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.The case, Nguyen v.Bonta, was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation and others. In the court’s opinion: Affirming the district court’s summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs, the panel...

Americans don’t have time for Barrett to spend years figuring out what kind of justice she wants to be. What kind of Supreme Court justice is Amy Coney Barrett going to be?That appeared to be the question a new expose by New York Times hack Jodi Kantor attempted to answer. Published Sunday, the lengthy article features analysis of the Trump appointee’s SCOTUS record thus far, as well as comments from former associates and Court watchers on her jurisprudence and how she approaches legal questions. The goal, as it seems, is to decipher whether the Catholic mother of seven will follow...

A federal appeals court is allowing the Trump White House to ban the Associated Press from the Oval Office and other restricted spaces for now in a ruling that blocked a lower court's ruling that claimed the ban was unconstitutional. In a 2-1 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted in part a stay of the lower court's April 8 ruling that declared the content-based ban unconstitutional. Both of the judges who ruled in the administration's favor were nominated by President Trump in his first term.

A judge in California on Monday blocked the Trump administration from using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants in the Los Angeles area, ruling that the government hasn't promised adequate due process. The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Holcomb — who was nominated by President Trump in 2019 — is the latest to limit the administration's controversial practice of rapidly deporting people accused of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua under the 1798 law, which allows removals during an "invasion" or "predatory incursion" of the United States. Courts in three other states have also...

Here's your daily update from the Pacific Northwest 👇 Caleb "Haven" Wilvich is a man who likes to wear dresses. Imagine this guy strutting naked around women with the blessing of America's courts: Two years later, a U.S. federal court of appeals has upheld the lower court's ruling that the spa must allow this man to be naked around naked women on their premises. In his dissent, Trump-appointed Judge Kenneth Lee said this: Now, under edict from the state, women — and even girls as young as 13 years old — must be nude alongside patrons with exposed male genitalia...

A federal court has determined that President Donald Trump does not have the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, dealing a sweeping blow to the president's main weapon in his ongoing global trade war. A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of International Trade found the tariffs were unlawful and permanently vacated them.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the stay. A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from withholding funds to New York City over its opposition to a congestion traffic pricing program that Washington says is more about raising money than addressing congestion.U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the stay, Reuters reported. The program has seen the city charge most vehicles a $9 toll to enter the Big Apple during periods of high traffic.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, however, has said the program appears "driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority system as opposed...

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily thwarted the Trump administration’s bid to kill Manhattan’s congestion pricing — ensuring the controversial program will stay in place until at least next month. US District Judge Lewis Liman issued a restraining order that prevents the US Transportation Department from fining or punishing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as the court battle over the toll rages on. The ruling came down just one day before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had threatened that the government could start withholding federal funding and approvals for New York projects if the toll wasn’t nixed. We’ve won — again,” Gov....

A U.S. district judge has ruled that the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) exceeded its authority when it inserted abortion accommodations into the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) — and must now remove them. KEY TAKEAWAYS: A U.S. District judge said changes made to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act by the Biden administration were ‘unlawful’ and must be removed. The lawsuit was brought by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which had originally supported the Act as written and passed in 2023. The USCCB argued that if Congress had intended to include abortion in the PWFA in 2023,...

SNIPState officials have praised Butler Snow for its experience in defending prison cases – and specifically William Lunsford, head of the constitutional and civil rights litigation practice group at the firm. But now the firm is facing sanctions by the federal judge overseeing Johnson’s case after an attorney at the firm, working with Lunsford, cited cases generated by artificial intelligence – which turned out not to exist.It is one of a growing number of instances in which attorneys around the country have faced consequences for including false, AI-generated information in official legal filings. A database attempting to track the prevalence...