Free Republic

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 appeals court has upheld an Indiana law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children under the age of 18, one of numerous such laws passed by Republican-controlled states. The 2-1 decision from the seventh US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday comes as the US supreme court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee, which may ultimately determine whether all such state laws around the country can be enforced. The seventh circuit had already allowed the law to take effect in February while it considered the challenge by families of...

A federal appeals court has ruled the Department of Education improperly rejected Grand Canyon University’s switch from for-profit to nonprofit status, granting a key point in the Christian school’s appeal of a record fine. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision Friday. It overturned a 2022 summary judgment by a lower court because the department failed to apply a relevant federal law to the Phoenix campus. The Education Department denied the nonprofit status in 2019, arguing it would enrich the for-profit company that previously owned GCU, even though the IRS and state...

The Western District of Louisiana’s US District Court has ruled in favor of the State of Missouri, allowing additional discovery in the significant Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which scrutinizes government collaboration in social media censorship. This decision comes after the Supreme Court, in June, overturned a prior injunction, then-named Murthy v. Missouri, which had prohibited entities including the White House, CDC, FBI, CISA, and the Surgeon General’s office from pressing social media platforms to suppress speech protected under the Constitution. [link to Court's Order] [snip] The depth of the Biden Administration’s involvement in these censorial activities likely would have remained...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A federal judge has overturned Illinois’ ban on semiautomatic weapons, leaning on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that strictly interpret the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms. U.S. District Judge Stephen P. McGlynn’s said his Friday decision applied universally, not just to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. The Protect Illinois Communities Act, signed into law in January 2023 by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, took effect Jan. 1. It bans AR-15 rifles and similar guns, large-capacity magazines and an assortment of attachments largely in response to the 2022 Independence Day shooting at a parade in the Chicago suburb...

Update - 9:30 AM Eastern:: Late Monday night, U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Pitlyk issued her ruling on Missouri's request for a temporary restraining order as to DOJ attorneys dispatched to monitor a polling location in the City of St. Louis. Pitlyk denied Missouri's request for a TRO on the basis that the state did not adequately demonstrate that it would be irreparably harmed by allowing "two individuals at one polling place to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act." It's important to note that the proposed monitoring as to the City of St. Louis derived from a settlement...

Since 1986, whistleblowers have been in the forefront of the government’s war on fraud, accounting for $53 billion, or more than 70%, of the $75 billion recovered from swindlers on defense contracts, from Medicare and from other federal programs.There’s no debate over what’s driving this record: It’s a 1986 federal law that awards whistleblowers up to 30% of the recovery. For the federal government, this is a bargain. Without the law, the government might never even know about most of the $75 billion in fraud that was unearthed. That makes the law “one of the government’s top fraud-fighting tools,” says...

On September 27, 2024, Federal District Court Judge Michael T. Liburdi rendered a decision in American Encore v. Adrian Fontes that weaponized algorithms surreptitiously embedded in various state boards of elections official voter registration database, turning them into a tool to block elections that bear the modus operandi of mail-in ballot election fraud from being certified.In his decision, Judge Liburdi referenced a provision in the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, had issued. That provision required the Secretary of State to certify an election by excluding the votes of any county that refused...

A district court judge in Kentucky has ruled that the “buffer zone” law outside an abortion facility in Louisville cannot be enforced, granting pro-life groups a court victory and the ability to continue counseling women. A permanent injunction was placed on the buffer zone ordinance on September 13, following a legal battle which lasted over three years. The court’s permanent injunction has effectively struck down Louisville’s unconstitutional buffer zone law, permitting sidewalk counselors to do what they do best — offer desperate women life-saving and empowering alternatives to abortion. “We are thrilled with this victory after a years-long battle that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Missouri put a temporary hold on President Joe Biden’s latest student loan cancellation plan on Thursday, slamming the door on hope it would move forward after another judge allowed a pause to expire. Just as it briefly appeared the Biden administration would have a window to push its plan forward, U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp in Missouri granted an injunction blocking any widespread cancellation. Six Republican-led states requested the injunction hours earlier, after a federal judge in Georgia decided not to extend a separate order blocking the plan. The states, led by Missouri’s...

...Judge Trevor McFadden sided with two ranchers from Arizona—a border state that's a battleground in the presidential race—who claimed that the Biden administration's halt on the border wall, which violated laws requiring an environmental review, caused concrete damage to the environment. The case centers around whether the Biden administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not reviewing the potential environmental impact of halting construction.. The ruling came from the case Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security... "In sum, the Court finds that Smith suffered tangible harms that were caused by an influx...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a Tennessee law that bans transgender students and staff from using school bathrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identities. A transgender student, identified only as D.H., filed the lawsuit nearly two years ago, saying her school stopped supporting her social transition after the Republican-dominant Statehouse and GOP Gov. Bill Lee enacted several policies targeting accommodations for transgender people. The school instead accommodated the student by allowing her to use one of four single-occupancy restrooms. However, according to D.H.'s attorneys, the accommodation caused severe stress, leading to the...

On August 30, 2024, Judge Iain D. Johnston of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an order and opinion showing the ban on carrying concealed weapons on public transportation is unconstitutional. The ban is “as applied”. It is only applicable to the individuals before the court in this case. The Chicago Transit Authority is commonly referred to as the CTA. From the opinion and order: After an exhaustive review of the parties’ filings and the historical record,as required by Supreme Court precedent, the Court finds that Defendants failed to meet their burden to show...

A U.S. District Judge ruled Friday that Illinois’ ban prohibiting concealed carry for self-defense on public transportation violates the Second Amendment. The judge, Ian D. Johnston, issued his opinion in Schoenthal v. Raoul. The plaintiffs in the case, Benjamin Schoenthal, Mark Wroblewski, Joseph Vesel, and Douglas Winston, all claimed the ban violated the Second Amendment. Schoenthal, Wrogblewski, Vesel, and Winston’s case was supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition. Judge Johnston noted: In Illinois, openly carrying firearms is unlawful. Under the Firearm Concealed Carry Act, an individual with a concealed-carry license may generally carry a concealed...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has weakened the Biden administration’s effort to use a historic civil rights law to fight industrial pollution alleged to have taken a heavier toll on minority communities in Louisiana. U.S. District Judge James David Cain of Lake Charles handed down the ruling Thursday, permanently blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing what are known as “disparate impact” requirements on the state.... In its lawsuit, the state argued that the Biden administration’s plans went beyond the scope of Title VI.... The state also said the policy is discriminatory because it would allow regulation of...

The First Amendment does not allow the United States to adopt "Oceania's Ministry of Truth." That line from George Orwell's dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" opens U.S. District Judge John Sinatra's order Thursday imposing a preliminary injunction on New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is threatening pro-life pregnancy centers for telling women about so-called abortion pill reversal, as their lawsuit proceeds. Her office may not enforce state consumer fraud laws against the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), Gianna's House and Options Care Center, which sued in May, for referring to APR, calling it safe and effective or...

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can continue to pursue his censorship lawsuit against the Biden administration. The Supreme Court ruled in June that state and individual plaintiffs who alleged the Biden administration violated their First Amendment rights when it pressured social media companies to suppress speech did not have standing to sue. District Court Judge Terry Doughty found Kennedy meets the standard set by the Supreme Court because there is “ample evidence” to show he has been censored in the past at the direction of government actors and “substantial risk” that the censorship will continue....

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER This matter is before the court on Defendant’s motion to dismiss based on Second Amendment grounds. (Doc. 26.) A response and a reply have been filed (Docs. 28, 29), and the court held a hearing to establish additional facts about the weapons charged. The motion is thus ripe for review. The court finds that the Second Amendment applies to the weapons charged because they are “bearable arms” within the original meaning of the amendment. The court further finds that the government has failed to establish that this nation’s history of gun regulation justifies the application of 18...

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday barred a US Federal Trade Commission rule from taking effect that would ban employers from requiring their workers to sign non-compete agreements. The ban, which had been scheduled to go into effect nationwide on September 4, is now effectively blocked. US District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas said the FTC does not have the authority to ban practices it deems unfair methods of competition by adopting broad rules. “The Court concludes that the FTC lacks statutory authority to promulgate the Non-Compete Rule, and that the Rule is arbitrary and capricious. Thus, the FTC’s...

PHOENIX — Arizonans who lack proof of citizenship can again sign up to vote in this year’s presidential and congressional races. The action comes after two of three judges on a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals late Thursday overturned a ruling to the contrary by a different three-judge panel whose duty it is to rule on pending motions. The majority of this panel — the one actually assigned to hear the case — concluded the other judges should never have made such a radical change in voting registration rules so soon before the election, saying it would...