Vermont Backs Down on Religion-Free School Choice after SCOTUS Knocks Down Maine Policy

Vermont families that want to send their children to religious schools will no longer be excluded from the state’s tuition benefit program, as a result of legal settlements in two cases brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

The plaintiffs who were denied funding under the Town Tuition Program, which provides tuition for students who live in areas without local public schools, will get reimbursement for money spent out of pocket on tuition. Other families denied funding can apply as well.

Read More

Commentary: The Systemic Racism of the Teachers Unions

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could reverse the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger decision, in which SCOTUS asserted that the use of an applicant’s race as a factor in an admissions policy of a public educational institution does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The current case specifically cites the use of race in the admissions process at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, maintain that Harvard violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, “which bars entities that receive federal funding from discriminating based on race, because Asian American applicants are less likely to be admitted than similarly qualified white, Black, or Hispanic applicants.”

Read More

Supreme Court Denies Arizona GOP Chair’s Bid to Block Jan. 6 Panel from Reviewing Phone Records

The Supreme Court on Monday denied Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward’s request to keep her cellphone records from the Democrat-led House Jan. 6 panel.

The court vacated the temporary order that Justice Elana Kagan put in place, pausing the phone records from being shared while the court weighed Ward’s request.

Read More

SCOTUS Considers Upending Legal Shield for Administrative State

Federal agencies can “trap” businesses and individuals for years in proceedings before administrative law judges (ALJs) who work for the agencies, rarely rule against them and can’t be removed by the president, constituting “here-and-now constitutional injuries,” according to lawyers for these targets.

Nonlethal weapons supplier Axon Enterprises and certified public accountant Michelle Cochran want the right to challenge the constitutionality of Federal Trade Commission and Securities & Exchange Commission ALJs in real courts, before the expense and emotional drag compels them to settle regardless of their guilt or the legitimacy of the proceedings.

Read More

Commentary: Cake Maker Jack Phillips Is STILL in Court

Jack Phillips

The endless travails of the Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips are a measure of America’s pathetic descent into coercive secularism. Phillips has spent at least a decade in court, beating back the ludicrous claims of ACLU-style militants who can’t rest until everyone has been dragooned into the LGBTQ revolution. Phillips was at first persecuted for declining trolling customer demands that he design cakes for gay nuptials. He survived that assault, but now faces fallout from the transgender lobby’s mau-mauing of his business. In 2017, a man pretending to be a woman sued him for not designing birthday cakes in honor of “gender transitions” — an obvious nuisance suit that the state of Colorado and activist judges have humored. Phillips is back in court fighting it.

Read More

Individuals Call for Assassination of Justice Clarence Thomas after Roe v. Wade Ruling

Individuals have been calling on social media for the assassination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after he issued a separate concurring opinion on Friday in a ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade. Abortion activists have also published his home address, and others have called to burn down the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned two landmark abortion cases, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, returning the legality of abortion to the states. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority and Justice Thomas wrote a solo concurring opinion in which he argued that the Supreme Court should also reconsider rulings on contraception, same-sex relationships and marriage.

Read More

Supreme Court Overrules Roe v. Wade in Mississippi Abortion Case

The Supreme Court released a decision Friday that strikes down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case, which, for nearly half-a-century has offered a constitutional protection to a woman’s right to an abortion.

The majority opinion, which was issued in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, was written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Read More

AG Garland Pointedly Refuses to Say If He Would Prosecute Protesters Outside Justices’ Homes

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 More

Biden Tells Alito He Can Ignore Stare Decisis, Overturn Roe in 2006 Exchange – If He Has the Votes

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, reports on how during the 2006 confirmation hearings for then-Judge Samuel Alito, then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., suggested to Alito that he would be in his rights to engineer the overturn of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, regardless of concerns for precedence–if he had the votes.

Read More

Newt Gingrich Commentary: Roe v. Wade Is Inevitably Going Away

Baby and Father

The current uproar over the leaked draft from the U.S. Supreme Court deliberations over abortion – and the rage of the pro-abortion Left over the likelihood that the conservative justices (three of whom were nominated by President Donald Trump) will now repeal Roe v. Wade – is in some ways a lot of noise about the inevitable.

Roe v. Wade was a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion across the whole country and made America one of the most extreme abortion systems in the entire world. Importantly, it was a court decision by appointed judges – not legislation made by elected legislators. It was inevitably going to be overturned sooner or later.

Read More

SCOTUS Authenticates Leaked Document, Orders Investigation

A message from the Public Information Office of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) says a report in German-owned Politico containing a leaked draft of the Court’s opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade is authentic.

“Yesterday, a news organization published an opinion in a pending case,” said the statement from the Court. “Justices circulate draft opinions internally as a routine and essential part of the Court’s confidential deliberative work. Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position on the issues of the case.”

Read More

German-Owned Politico Publishes Purported Leaked Draft Decision Suggesting Supreme Court Vote to Overturn Roe v. Wade

A draft of the majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito leaked to Politico suggests the Supreme Court voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision.

The reported 98-page opinion of at least five justices offers a sharp rebuke of Roe and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, both of which protected abortion rights.

Read More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

Biden SCOTUS Nominee Ridiculed for Refusing to Define ‘Woman’

Marsha Blackburn

As part of the hearings for her confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked by a Tennessee Senator to define the word “woman.” 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn pressed Jackson for a definition, which the judge said she could not provide. The following is the transcript of the dialogue between the pair: 

Read More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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…

Read More

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 More

Republican National Committee Announces Support of ‘Keep Nine Amendment’ to Prevent Packing of Supreme Court

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has come out in support of the proposed “Keep Nine Amendment” that, if enacted, would prevent packing the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Resolutions Committee adopted the resolution of support, the RNC said in a statement Friday.

Read More

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 More

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 More

SCOTUS to Hear Arguments in Five Cases in First Week of November

On Nov. 2, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States will begin its November sitting. All arguments during its November and December sittings will be conducted via teleconference with live audio. The court made the decision to hold proceedings this way in accordance with public health guidance in response to COVID-19.

Read More

U.S. Senate Confirms Barrett to Supreme Court, Giving Conservatives a 6-3 Majority

The U.S. Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to be an associate justice on the nation’s highest court Monday. 

Barrett fills the vacancy of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September at the age of 87 from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. 

Read More

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 More