The Supreme Court rejected Thursday a challenge to a 2017 tax law passed by Congress.
The case, Moore v. United States, considers whether the 16th Amendment permits taxing unrealized gains. Kathleen and Charles Moore sued for a refund in 2019 after they were hit with a $14,729 tax bill for their investment in an overseas company, though they never received any payment in earnings from the company.
Read the full story
The Supreme Court sided unanimously Thursday against several doctors and pro-life medical associations who brought a challenge to the abortion pill.
In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Supreme Court held that the doctors do not have standing to challenge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to roll back safety regulations for the abortion pill. While recognizing the plaintiffs have “sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority rulings that those kind of objections are not enough to show the doctors would be injured by the FDA’s actions, noting the federal courts are “the wrong forum” for addressing their concerns.
Read the full story
Washington glitterati assembled at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in October to celebrate federal employees making a difference in government. Hosted by CNN anchor Kate Bolduan, the black-tie affair featured in-person appearances by top Biden White House officials including Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack.
Midway through the evening’s festivities, Max Stier, president of the group sponsoring the event – the Partnership for Public Service, a $24 million nonprofit based in Washington that recruits individuals to work in the civil service – took the stage to thank his high-profile guests. “Great leaders are the heart and soul of effective organizations,” Stier said, “which is why I am so thankful to see so many of our government’s amazing leaders here tonight.”
Read the full story
Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed former Fox News contributor and author of Race Pimping, Mr. Kevin Jackson to the newsmaker line to discuss why he got hired and fired at Fox News.
Read the full story
by Victor Davis Hanson A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes – whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba – is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite another privately. It nervously nods yes at the news while at work, but at home cynically assumes the opposite of whatever is publicly said to be true. RIP, First Amendment Such electronic propaganda has sadly become characteristic of the world’s oldest consensual government. In America we once believed our First Amendment prevented a government monopoly on information. But in the age of globalization, the Internet, and social media, the state has become the enemy – not the protector – of free speech. One obvious sign is that the Biden Administration keeps trying to create new sorts of ministries of truth or “Disinformation Governance Boards.” It alleges such Orwellian censors must combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.” In fact, these bureaucracies are designed to criminalize unwanted free expression while also advancing state propaganda. Among our Washington officials, the following myths were once declared the official version of the “truth”: Mounted border patrol agents “whipped”…
Read the full story
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined a letter with several Republican Senators to demand answers on the lack of law enforcement action surrounding potentially violent protests that have targeted Supreme Court Justices.
Leftwing individuals have flocked to the homes of conservative members of the Court, following a leak from the Supreme Court that indicated the group favors overturning Roe v Wade.
Read the full story
The Democrat-led House on Tuesday passed a measure to expand security for Supreme Court justices and their family members.
The bill passed by a 396-27, with only Democrats voting no.
Read the full story
Despite the arrest Wednesday of an armed man who allegedly claimed he intended to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended not passing a House bill seeking to increase security for the justices’ homes, and gruffly responded to a reporter, “I don’t know what you’re talking about … nobody is in danger.”
On Thursday – just one day after 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home and then charged with attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice – Pelosi was about to leave her weekly press conference when she responded brusquely to a reporter who shouted out to her, “You said the justices are protected, but there was an attempt on Justice Kavanaugh’s life.”
Read the full story
An armed California man arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home Wednesday allegedly told police officers he wanted to kill Kavanaugh in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in the Mississippi abortion law case that could overturn Roe v. Wade.
Fox News has reported the suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske of Simi Valley, California, and had been carrying a gun, knife, and pepper spray when arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Read the full story
Attorney General Merrick Garland is pointedly refusing to say if he’s open to prosecuting protesters who demonstrate outside of Supreme Court justices’ homes, which a growing number of office-holders are urging him to do.
Republican Governors Larry Hogan of Maryland and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and members of Congress want Garland to uphold federal law that prohibits actions to intimidate judges at their private residences.
Read the full story
Two moderate Republican senators criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that if the draft opinion was accurate, “it rocks my confidence in the court right now,” Politico’s Burgess Everett reported. Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the accuracy of the leak in a statement Tuesday.
Read the full story
Monday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed visiting fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, May Davis to the newsmakers line to outline her recent op-ed addressing the eviction moratorium.
Read the full story
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling Monday night in a 5-3 vote, prohibiting the State of Wisconsin from counting mail-in ballots that arrive days after the election.
Voting rights groups, state and national Democratic parties and the League of Women voters sought to extend ballot counting in Wisconsin, according to NBC News. They argued that the coronavirus pandemic presents challenges to voters who wish to vote by mail, but the Supreme Court ruled that citizens have plenty of options if they wish to vote.
Read the full story
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Wednesday remarks were “dangerous” and “threatening statements.”
Read the full story
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer seemed to threaten two United States Supreme Court Justices during a Planned Parenthood rally outside of the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Read the full story
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Tuesday spoke on the Senate floor about the latest unfounded and “incomprehensible” claims of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Read the full story
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), one of two Republican women to ever serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is standing up for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Read the full story
Sen. Kamala Harris and fellow Democratic presidential candidates are calling for Congress to impeach sitting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after a report Saturday resurrected allegations against the justice.
Read the full story
by Kevin Daley The Supreme Court refused Monday to decide whether religious institutions may be disqualified from public historic preservation funding, after a New Jersey court forbade local officials from dispersing $4 million to 12 churches. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a separate opinion addressing the dispute, calling the lower court’s decision “pure discrimination.” “Barring religious organizations because they are religious from a general historic preservation grants program is pure discrimination against religion,” Kavanaugh wrote. “At some point, this Court will need to decide whether governments that distribute historic preservation funds may deny funds to religious organizations simply because the organizations are religious.” Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch joined the Kavanaugh opinion. Morris County, New Jersey awards grants for the maintenance of historically significant structures. Several churches dating back to the colonial period have received public support through that program since 2012. The case at issue Monday arose in April 2016, when the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and a local taxpayer brought a lawsuit claiming the Morris County program violates New Jersey’s constitution. The state constitution provides that no person shall be “obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches.” The New Jersey…
Read the full story
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) voted Thursday to advance Neomi Rao’s nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines to move Rao’s nomination to the full Senate, Fox News said. Rao would fill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s vacant seat on the court. Rao is in charge of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where she has a key job in President Donald Trump’s work to cut federal rules and regulations, Fox News said. She also is on leave as an associate professor of law from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. She teaches and writes in the areas of structural constitutional law, administrative law, and legislation and statutory interpretation, according to her biography. She founded the law school’s Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Democrats and two Republicans — Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Thursday grilled Rao on her stance on topics from sexual assault to LGBT rights to deregulation, Fox News said. She said, “Tennesseans have regularly said over the last several years one of the things that concerned them most is the judges that…
Read the full story
by Kevin Daley The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc released a short, little-noticed statement on Jan. 22 that portends far-reaching changes for religious liberty. The statement — which Justice Samuel Alito authored and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined — criticized the 1990 Employment Division v. Smith decision, a landmark ruling that held laws interfering with religious exercise are constitutional provided that they apply to everyone and are neutrally enforced. “In Employment Division v. Smith the Court drastically cut back on the protection provided by the free exercise clause,” Alito wrote. “In this case, however, we have not been asked to revisit that decision.” In the understated parlance of the Supreme Court, it was a clarion call for litigants to bring cases challenging Smith. It was all the more remarkable in that four justices signed onto the statement, an uncommon occurrence for opinions of this nature. The late Justice Antonin Scalia authored the 5-4 Smith ruling. Outrage at the decision prompted passage of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which requires courts to subject federal action that infringes on religious practice to the highest degree of scrutiny. More recently, something approaching an anti-Smith consensus has developed on the right. Most…
Read the full story
by Kevin Daley Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado, a freshman member of the House Judiciary Committee, told constituents the panel will likely investigate Justice Brett Kavanaugh for perjury. “There’s no question [Kavanaugh] committed perjury during the confirmation hearings and so forth,” Neguse said when asked if the justice might be impeached. “I think the Judiciary Committee is likely to take that up.” A conservative opposition research group obtained and disseminated video of Neguse’s comments. The congressman was not specific as to which of Kavanaugh’s statements might rise to the level of perjury. Democrats have put forward various theories as to how Kavanaugh misled the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings: One theory, which NBC News advanced, held that he lied concerning when he first learned about the allegations of Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate who accused Kavanaugh of drunkenly exposing himself to her at a party. In response to questions from lawmakers during his second confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh said he first learned of Ramirez’s claims from The New Yorker, the venue in which her story appeared. NBC subsequently recovered text messages revealing the justice and his allies were discussing Ramirez’s allegations before the story’s publication, prompting charges…
Read the full story
by Kevin Daley The Supreme Court may soon take up its first significant abortion controversy under the newly solidified conservative majority. The case at issue is a challenge to an Indiana law forbidding abortions on the basis of an unborn baby’s sex, race or disability and requires doctors to inform their patients of the same. The law also obliges medical professionals to cremate or bury fetal remains. Vice President Mike Pence signed the legislation during his tenure as governor of Indiana. Pro-life advocates say the law is needed to protect the dignity of post-abortive unborn babies and prevent eugenic abortions. But pro-choice groups warn that the statute undermines the legal foundations of abortion by advancing the cause of fetal personhood and permitting government scrutiny of a woman’s reasons for terminating a pregnancy. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky challenged the law in court. A federal judge in Indianapolis permanently barred enforcement of the law in 2017. A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. The panel unanimously agreed that the anti-selective termination provisions were unconstitutional because they effectively amounted to an “absolute prohibition” on abortions. However, the panel split two to one as…
Read the full story
Phil Bredesen wants you to know that if he loses the Senate race, it will be the “National Democratic brand’s fault, not his. Former Tennessee Gov. Bredesen made the remark in an interview that aired Sunday with MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt, adding that the national party has hurt the brand. The Washington Free Beacon reported on the interview Monday. The video is available to watch here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSkvYgYEI4w Bredesen said, “we’ve drifted away from that” in response to Democrats’ handling of the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, meaning the Senate’s job is to consider a nominee’s competence and ability. “Not that long ago, Ginsberg could get 95-plus votes, and Scalia could get 95-plus votes. That, to me, is very much the way we ought to be acting.” Hunt did not ask Bredesen about his last-minute wishy-washy endorsement of Kavanaugh when his nomination was guaranteed. Nor did she ask about Project Veritas Action’s undercover video showing Bredesen’s campaign staff admitting he lied about supporting Kavanaugh to gain votes. “It’s a political move,” Bredesen campaign field organizer Maria Amall said in the video to an undercover reporter. Nor did Hunt ask Bredesen about Mark Brown lying to the media about…
Read the full story
by Dr. Carol M. Swain Supreme Court justices need secret service protection now more than ever. The Left would like to remove Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas. Their goal is to gain control of the Court using any means necessary. On October 6, the day of the Senate vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Charlie Savage, writing for The New York Times, discussed liberal strategies for gaining control of the Court. Acknowledging that the Supreme Court would be controlled by a conservative majority for the foreseeable future, Savage reported, “Liberals have already started to attack the legitimacy of the majority bloc and discussed ways to eventually undo its power without waiting for one of its members to retire or die.” One idea is to regain control of the of the government in 2020 and have a liberal president increase the number of Supreme Court justices to create a liberal majority. Another scheme is to find a means to “impeach, remove and replace Justice Kavanaugh,” as well as Justice Thomas. Currently, there is a petition with over 47,000 signatures to impeach Thomas. In the past, opportunities to fill Supreme Court seats depended on the death…
Read the full story