Supreme Court Rules Boston Violated Constitution by Not Allowing Christian Flag Outside City Hall

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the city of Boston violated the U.S. Constitution when it refused to allow a local organization to fly a Christian flag in front of City Hall.

The nine justices said the city has established a public forum outside of City Hall, and invited all organizations to use the flagpole in front of the building to commemorate events. Not allowing the Christian flag to be flown denied the group the same rights as those afforded to all others and was a violation of free speech, said the court.

Read the full story

19 Attorneys General Urge Supreme Court to Uphold Ruling Ordering Full Reinstatement of ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy

Nineteen attorneys general, led by Indiana, have filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a lawsuit filed by Texas and Missouri against the Biden administration.

They’re asking the Supreme Court to uphold a lower court’s order instructing the Biden administration to follow the law to fully reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), otherwise known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Read the full story

Commentary: The Difference Between Judge Jackson and Justice Thomas Is the Difference Between Nihilism and Natural Law

Observers of the Supreme Court should ask themselves what’s the more preposterous mainstream media mindmeld: whether Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself or resign over his wife’s political activism, or the legal brilliance of the Supreme Court Justice-to-be, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Truth be told, what we have here is the myrmidon media’s mockery of the most brilliant Supreme Court justice ever, one they have derisively dismissed as a lawn jockey of the Right, a lackey of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, someone who will be tutored on race by future Justice Jackson, and now a pawn or puppet of his wife. The actual contrast between the two judges could hardly be greater. Of course, neither justice should be held completely responsible for the allies he attracts.

Read the full story

Child Rapist Given Light Sentence by Ketanji Jackson, then Caught Again

Ketanji Brown Jackson

Over a decade ago, a convicted child rapist was given a light sentence by Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, only to commit another crime after his sentencing.

According to the New York Post, Leo Weekes was convicted in 2010 of raping his 13-year-old niece in 2006. He was sentenced to serve 16 months in jail, plus 4 years of supervised probation, and was ordered to register as a sex offender for the next 10 years. Weekes subsequently failed to register and evaded authorities by lying about his residence, claiming in 2013 to be in Washington D.C. when he in fact lived in Temple Hills, Maryland.

In February of 2014, Weekes was brought before Brown, who was then U.S. District Court Judge of the District of Columbia, after pleading guilty to the charge of failing to register as a sex offender. The prosecutors requested that Weekes be sentenced to two years in jail with an additional five years of supervised release, while his defense attorneys requested a sentence of 10 months and three years of supervised release.

Read the full story

Commentary: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Soft Spot for Drug Dealers, Pedophiles and Terrorists

Ketanji Brown Jackson

If confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, she vowed to limit the government’s “overreach” in punishing criminals and enforce the guarantees offered the accused under the Bill of Rights.

That said, Jackson testified, “It’s very important that people be held accountable for their crimes, so if they’re not, then it would be a problem for the rule of law.”

Her idea of the best way to hold criminals “accountable” is a key issue the Senate will have to weigh as it votes to confirm her confirmation early next month.

As the count stands now, it appears she has enough votes to squeeze past an evenly divided Senate. But Republicans are pressuring Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to release documents they say shed more light on Jackson’s record on the bench, as well as the sentencing commission. Democratic Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin refuses to turn over even redacted copies of the presentencing reports generated in the child sex offender cases Jackson presided over. He also will not release her emails and other internal correspondence from her time on the commission. The White House, moreover, is withholding an additional 48,000 pages of documents that likely include some of her commission emails.

“Why are Democrats hiding her record? What is Judge Jackson hiding?” Davis asked.

Read the full story

Trump Levels Blistering Attack on Democrats, and Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee

Donald Trump speaking

Sounding ever more a candidate seeking the White House again, former President Donald Trump on Saturday night attacked Democrats as a party of “socialists and communists” so extreme that they chose a Supreme Court nominee who “can’t even say what a woman is.”

“A party that’s unwilling to admit that men and women are biologically different in defiance of all scientific and human history is a party that should not be anywhere near the levers of power in the United States,” Trump told a raucous rally in rural Georgia.

In a 90-minute speech, Trump also rallied Republicans to get behind gubernatorial candidate David Perdue and football star-turned-Senate candidate Herschel Walker and to defeat incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

Read the full story

Hot Mic at Metro Nashville Board of Education Meeting Catches Board Member Saying She Wants to Set Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Fire

A woman at a Metro Nashville Board of Public Education meeting was caught on a hot microphone saying she wants to set a U.S. Senator from Tennessee on fire. 

Amid cross talk, one person in the recorded conversation brings up Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in the context of Blackburn’s line of questioning during U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings last week. 

Read the full story

Redistricting: Governor Petitions Wisconsin Supreme Court to Accept SCOTUS Invite

Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the U.S. Supreme Court’s invitation to accept more evidence if it wishes to reconsider his state legislative maps.

The nation’s highest court on Wednesday reversed and remanded the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s March 3 decision to adopt Evers’ proposal, calling the first-term Democrat’s maps a racial gerrymander that violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

Read the full story

Biden SCOTUS Nominee Went Beyond Call of Duty to Defend Terror Suspects

Ketanji Brown Jackson

President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court represented suspected terrorists when she was a federal public defender, going well beyond a bare-bones defense to lambaste the U.S. government for some if its counterterrorism policies and broader approach to the War on Terror.

Biden on Friday nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

Jackson’s record will no doubt be heavily scrutinized in the coming days as the Senate prepares for its confirmation hearings. Perhaps no aspect of her past legal work will come under more scrutiny than her advocacy on behalf of prisoners detained at the Guantanamo Bay military prison as enemy combatants for their alleged role in terrorist activities.

Read the full story

Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee a Slam Dunk for Democrats

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

President Biden announced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson, who donated to and worked with former President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, has a record of rulings that seemingly favor Democrats.

In a 2015 ruling, for example, she declined to force former Hillary Clinton aide Philipe Reines to explain why he used a private account for work-related emails, according to Politico.

Read the full story

Minnesota Judge Who Went Easy on Violent Arsonist Is on Biden’s SCOTUS Shortlist

Judge Wilhelmina Wright

A U.S. district judge serving the District of Minnesota is said to be on President Joe Biden’s “shortlist” to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

But Minnesotans might remember her for her leniency in the sentencing of a violent arsonist.

Judge Wilhelmina Wright is one of several top candidates for the soon-to-be vacant Supreme Court seat, as outlets like The Hill and Forbes have reported.

Read the full story

School District Racially Segregates Students, Threatens Them for ‘Biased’ Statements: Lawsuit

A Massachusetts school district is racially segregating students and threatening to punish them for subjectively “offensive” statements they make, violating their civil and constitutional rights at both the state and federal level, according to a new lawsuit seeking permanent injunctions.

Parents Defending Education is challenging the “affinity groups” and associated spaces created by Wellesley Public Schools’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) plan for 2020-2025.

Read the full story

Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich Join SCOTUS Suit to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Both Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich joined separate amicus curiae briefs with other governors and attorneys general in an abortion case out of Missouri that would gut Roe v. Wade by banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Ducey joined 11 other governors led by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to demand that the Supreme Court uphold the state law and undo Roe v. Wade. Brnovich signed on with 23 other attorneys general led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to ask that the court overrule Roe v. Wade because it is “erroneous, inconsistent, uneven, and unreliable.”

Ducey said in a statement, “The Constitution preserves the rights of the states by specifically enumerating the authority granted to the federal government. Unfortunately, almost 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to ignore the Constitution and created policy which has led to the over-politicization of this issue for decades.” 

Read the full story

Supreme Court Upholds Arizona’s Voting Restrictions, ‘Not Racially Discriminatory’

Thursday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld Arizona law prohibiting ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct voting. The three dissents in the case, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (DNC), came from Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. The DNC had argued that the state’s bans on ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct voting discriminated against minorities, thereby violating the Voting Rights Act. SCOTUS rejected that assessment.

Arizona law prohibits individuals from casting provisional ballots in person on Election Day outside of their designated precinct. It also prohibits ballot harvesting, meaning that only family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers, and election officials can handle individual’s ballots.

Read the full story

Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Leads Challenge at SCOTUS Related to Hobbs

Mark Brnovich

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed an amicus curiae brief Monday in the U.S. Supreme Court with 22 states signing on, demanding the court overrule a decision by the Sixth Circuit allowing state officials to surrender in lawsuits challenging state laws they don’t want to defend.  The move comes as Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is refusing to appeal adverse decisions striking down Arizona’s elections laws.

The brief relates to Kentucky v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, where Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear failed to appeal a court decision striking down a Kentucky law banning dismemberment abortions during the second trimester of pregnancy. Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron is trying to intervene in order to defend the law.

Read the full story

Vanderbilt University Chair Says Supreme Court Ban on Race-Based College Admissions Would Hold Back Minorities from Leadership, ‘Influential’ Employment

Vanderbilt University

A Vanderbilt University chair said that race-based admissions would prevent minorities from attaining leadership positions and “influential” employment. Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair Professor of Law and Economic Joni Hersch made this assessment in a legal studies research paper, “Affirmative Action and the Leadership Pipeline.” The paper is expected to appear in Tulane Law Review soon.

Hersch wrote the article in response to the ongoing court case, Students for Fair Admissions (SSFA) v. Harvard. In the lawsuit, SSFA alleges that Harvard University discriminates against Asian applicants in its admissions process by engaging in racial balancing.

Read the full story

Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch Blast Supreme Court’s ‘Inexplicable’ Refusal to Hear Pennsylvania Election Lawsuit

by Debra Heine   The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Republican challenge over absentee ballots received up to three days after Election Day in Pennsylvania. Republicans in the Keystone State had sought to block a state court ruling that allowed the Nov. 6  deadline extension in the 2020 election. The decision prompted dissents from three conservative justices; Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. The trio argued that while the legal questions in the case may not have affected the outcome of the November election, the Supreme Court should take the opportunity to clarify election law because the same legal issues could impact future elections. Throughout his dissent, Thomas characterized the Court’s refusal to take cases challenging the election as “inexplicable,” “befuddling,” and “baffling.” “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non-legislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable,” Thomas wrote. “The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the ‘Manner’ of federal elections,” Thomas argued. “Yet both before and after the 2020 election, non-legislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set…

Read the full story

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case on Georgia Student Prohibited from Sharing Gospel on Campus

A Georgia Gwinnett College student appeared before the Supreme Court on Tuesday to defend free speech on campuses. The student, Chike Uzuegbunam, was prohibited by campus officials from speaking about the Christian faith on campus twice in 2016, following alleged complaints from other students.

A day before the Supreme Court hearing, Uzuegbunam published an opinion piece recounting his experience at the college and throughout the subsequent court hearings. Uzuegbunam explained that he was barred from passing out fliers and discussing his faith with fellow students publicly. According to his account, he was having one-on-one conversations with students when he was stopped by a campus official and told he needed to file a request for a speech zone.

Read the full story

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Qualified Immunity Arguments for Michigander Beaten by Police

The highest court in the United States on Monday will hear oral arguments in a case seeking to reform a concept that gave police officers immunity after they nearly beat a college student to death six years ago.

James King, a 21-year-old college student, was walking between his two summer jobs in Grand Rapids, Mich., when two plain-clothes officers asked for his ID in a case of a mistaken identity involving a suspect of a non-violent crime.

Read the full story

Pennsylvania Poll Volunteer: Election Totally Chaotic and Suspicious

A poll worker who checked in voters at the Radnor Municipal Building located in Delaware County, Pennsylvania’s Sixth Ward – about 13 miles outside of Philadelphia – said Tuesday was “total chaos.”

The worker, who we will call Sue (to protect her identity and safety), said that she worked the greater Philly area polling precinct in 2016 and never saw what she witnessed in droves on election day 2020.

People were angry, according to the election volunteer.

Read the full story

Supreme Court Orders Pennsylvania Counties to Separate Mail-in Ballots Received After November 3 

Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. issued an Order on Friday evening requiring all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to keep all ballots received after 8:00 p.m. on November 3 “in a secure, safe, sealed container separated from other voted ballots” and that “if counted, be counted separately.”

The Order was issued in a case already before the SCOTUS – Pennsylvania Republican Party v. Kathy Boockvar, Secretary of Pennsylvania, et.al.

Read the full story

Senator Klobuchar Calls Barrett Hearings a ‘Sham’ on Opening Day

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) called the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett “a sham” in her opening statement.

Klobuchar and her colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee convened Monday morning for the opening day of hearings, which will continue through Thursday. Barrett’s nomination was announced by President Donald Trump last month during an event in the White House Rose Garden.

Read the full story

Supremes Hear Google, Oracle Case of Copyright Clash

The topic was high tech: the code behind smartphones.

But on Wednesday the Supreme Court looked to more low tech examples, from the typewriter keyboard to restaurant menus, try to resolve an $8 billion-plus copyright dispute between tech giants Google and Oracle.

The case, which the justices heard by phone because of the coronavirus pandemic, has to do with Google’s creation of the Android operating system now used on the vast majority of smartphones worldwide. In developing Android, Google used some of Oracle’s computer code.

Read the full story

Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar: Trump Shouldn’t Pick the New SCOTUS Justice

Senators Tina Smith (DFL-MN) and Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN) stated that President Trump shouldn’t pick the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) nominee. Instead, Smith and Klobuchar say that the newly-elected president should, and the Senate should wait to vote until then.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday from cancer complications. The SCOTUS vacancy is now the epicenter of political leaders’ attention.

Read the full story

Opioids, Violence and the Supreme Court Largely Omitted from DNC Convention Speeches

Democrats focused on coronavirus, climate change, racial inequality and more during their party’s convention, but none pf the keynote speakers mentioned rising violence in cities across the country or the opioid epidemic during the primetime program.

The two issues have been worsening in part due to nationwide unrest and the pandemic, media reports and studies say. The Supreme Court — a large focus of the 2016 election — was also largely ignored.

Read the full story

Conservatives Praise Supreme Court for Ruling States Can’t Discriminate Against Religious Schools

The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday that states can’t cut religious schools out of programs that send public money to private education in a 5-4 ruling. 

Hailed as a victory for religious freedom, the justices upheld a Montana scholarship program that allows state tax credits for private schooling in which almost all the recipients attend religious schools.

Read the full story

SCOTUS Strikes Down Ban on Taxpayers Funding Religious Schools

The Supreme Court ruled against a ban on taxpayer funding of religious schools Tuesday in a monumental win for school choice.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined conservative justices in a 5-4 ruling backing a Montana tax-credit scholarship program that gives residents credit if they donated to private scholarship organizations, according to Fox News, which would help the students pay for the private school of their choice.

Read the full story

Conservatives Call Out Chief Justice John Roberts on Abortion Ruling: ‘He’s a Disgrace’

by Mary Margaret Olohan   Conservatives are turning against Chief Justice John Roberts after the Supreme Court justice sided with liberal judges in a monumental abortion ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with liberal members of the court in the close 5-4 ruling, writing that “the Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons.” Pro-lifers and conservatives alike had anxiously awaited Robert’s decision on the landmark abortion ruling, worrying that Roberts might side with the liberal justices based on his previous votes earlier in June. Conservatives ripped into Roberts Monday following news of the decision.  Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk called the chief justice “a disgrace” while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee condemned Roberts as “an empty black robe.” Political commentator Dinesh D’Souza labeled “a sizable majority of #SCOTUS justices” including Justices Souter, Kennedy, and Roberts, “unreliable turncoats.” Republicans have nominated a sizable majority of #SCOTUS justices, yet one after another—from Souter to Kennedy to Roberts—they have proven to be unreliable turncoats. The conservative strategy of naming judges supposedly faithful to “original intent” is now a confirmed failure — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) June 29, 2020 “Roberts has destroyed any credibility the Court may have…

Read the full story

Commentary: Immortalizing Bureaucracy

Just as the infamous Dred Scott case in 1857 would have extended slavery throughout America, so Thursday’s decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California threatens to make the machinations of bureaucratic government supreme and unrepealable.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ 5-4 court opinion strengthens the grip of the administrative state – the interlocking network of bureaucracy and political correctness – over the democratically elected branches that are supposed to make us a nation of self-governing citizens.

Read the full story