Supreme Court Rules Gov Officials Can Block Constituents from Their Social Media Pages in Certain Situations

James Freed

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday that there are circumstances when government officials can permissibly block a constituent from their social media pages, provided they are not claiming to speak on the state’s behalf.

The case, Lindke v. Freed, stemmed from Port Huron, Michigan, resident Kevin Lindke’s First Amendment lawsuit against city manager James Freed, who blocked Lindke from his Facebook page over comments criticizing the city’s response to COVID-19. While officials may look like they are “always on the clock,” not every encounter is “part of the job,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the opinion of the court.

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Commentary: In Prosecuting Trump, Democrats Have Exonerated Him

Trump Walking

Despite their best efforts, have Democrats begun an inexorable elevation of former President Donald Trump? For the better part of a decade, Democrats and the Left have thrown everything they could think of against the man they live to loathe. In the process, they have created a quasi-caricature that appears to be decreasingly believable to an increasing proportion of Americans. The question is whether these attacks have come full circle, accomplishing what Democrats most sought to avoid. Have they vilified Trump to victimhood and prosecuted him back into the presidency?

Since Trump burst on the political scene in 2016, Democrats and the Left have busted their guts laughing at him. When that didn’t work and he won, they burst all boundaries going after him. Their efforts have ranged from slights to a Russian dossier to two impeachments. Even after Trump left office, they refused to stop. Unquestionably, these efforts have had an effect — and equally unquestionably, Trump has given ample fodder to use against him: the result being that with Trump poised to win an unprecedented third successive major party presidential nomination (a feat last accomplished by Franklin D. Roosevelt 84 years ago), he has become a highly polarizing figure.

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Supreme Court Unanimously Rules Trump Cannot Be Removed from Colorado Ballot

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 Monday that former President Donald Trump cannot be removed from Colorado’s 2024 ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court found Trump ineligible for the state’s ballot in December, ruling he was disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

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Supreme Court Rules: Trump Can Remain on Ballot

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former President Donald Trump can remain on the 2024 presidential ballot in a decision that comes one day before the Colorado Republican primary after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the top Republican contender is ineligible.

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Commentary: Technology Changes and Bipartisanship are Causing Journalism’s Woes

Journalists Press

by Carl M. Cannon   For the American media, 2024 has been a fiasco. And it’s still only February. Nine days into the new year, highly respected Los Angeles Times editor Kevin Merida resigned rather than tolerate another round of layoffs and the meddlesome ways of a billionaire publisher and his…

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FDA Threatens Endangered Species with Shoddy Abortion-Drug Reviews: Lance Armstrong Investigator

Federal public health officials created strange bedfellows among animal-welfare advocates, scientists and vaccine skeptics for allegedly cutting corners in viral and COVID-19 vaccine research and oversight, possibly engineering a pathogen, then a cure that’s worse for some.

The Food and Drug Administration may be creating another odd couple in a case at the Supreme Court: environmental and pro-life activists.

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Biden Cancels Another $1.2 Billion in Student Loan Debt

In yet another move circumventing the Supreme Court on the question of student loan debt, Joe Biden announced the cancellation of approximately $1.2 billion in student loan debt for about 153,000 borrowers.

As reported by ABC News, the Biden Administration made the cancellation official on Wednesday, including a draft email that will be sent to all of the borrowers in question. The email will read, in part: “Congratulations — all or a portion of your federal student loans will be forgiven because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my Administration’s SAVE Plan.”

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Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Removal of Trump from Colorado Ballot Under Insurrection Clause

Trump Supreme Court

Supreme Court justices on Thursday appeared skeptical during oral arguments of Colorado plaintiffs’ assertions that former President Donald Trump should be kept off of the state’s ballot for president.

The justices focused on the consequences of allowing Colorado to remove former President Donald Trump during oral arguments on Thursday, pressing the Colorado plaintiffs’ attorney on the issues that could occur across the country. 

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Commentary: Was It Legal to Appoint Jack Smith in the First Place?

Jack Smith

Was Special Counsel Jack Smith illegally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and is his prosecution of former Pres. Donald Trump unlawful? That is the intriguing issue raised in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court by Schaerr Jaffe, LLP, on behalf of former Attorney General Ed Meese and two law professors, Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, in the case of U.S. v. Trump.

We won’t get an immediate answer to this question because on the Friday before Christmas, the Supreme Court issued a one-line order refusing to take up Smith’s request that the court review Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, which was denied by the trial court, in the federal prosecution being pursued by Smith in the District of Columbia. The special counsel had petitioned the court to take the case on an expedited basis, urging the justices to bypass review by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

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Supreme Court to Hear Arguments in Federal Bump Stock Gun Case

Gun Range

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a federal ban on bump stocks later in February, the latest opportunity for the high court to rule on gun violence and 2nd Amendment rights.

The case in question, Garland v. Cargill, came after the Trump administration banned bump stocks, attachments added to semiautomatic weapons to make them fire more quickly, classifying them as “machine guns,” which are banned by federal law.

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Former Hunter Biden Business Partner Devon Archer

The Supreme Court rejected former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer’s appeal of his criminal conviction in connection to a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe. 

Archer was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to just over a year in prison in 2022 for defrauding a Native American tribe of $60 million in bonds. The Supreme Court refused to hear Archer’s appeal challenging his sentence on Monday.

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Commentary: DEI Destroys Excellence, Military Cohesion at Service Academies

Military

Applicants who self-identified as a member of a race the Academy wished to privilege—at the time I was on the Admissions Board it was African American, Hispanic, and Native American—were briefed separately to the committee not by a white member but by a minority Navy lieutenant. Briefings (a minute and forty seconds per applicant, no more) ran through a number of factors quite quickly and offered a recommendation that we had been told was appropriate: “qualified” for USNA if grades A/B for white applicants (but not minorities, who needed only C grades), 600 score in each part of the SAT for white applicants (but about 550 for minorities who come to USNA without remediation), and Whole Person Multiple (points given for grades/tests, school leadership positions, and sports) of at least 55,000 for whites, no bottom for minorities.

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Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case Regarding Transgender Bathroom Policies in Schools

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in a case that could have potentially set a nationwide precedent on the question of transgender bathroom policies in school districts.

As ABC News reports, the case in question stems from an Indiana public school district, the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, which is located about 30 miles southwest of Indianapolis. Most recently, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous order determining that biological females can use the male restroom, and vice-versa. A similar ruling was made by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, while the appeals court in Atlanta ruled against such policies.

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DOJ Supreme Court Filing Reveals Details Inconsistent with DHS Narrative Blaming Texas for Migrant Drownings

CBP Help

A new Supreme Court filing by the Department of Justice (DOJ) raises new questions that could help exonerate the Texas Military Department after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) English) accuse the state agency of allowing the deaths of three migrants who drowned in Shelby Park last week.

Both the White House and Biden’s Department of Homeland Security blamed state officials after three migrants, including two children, drowned in the Shelby Park area.

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Senator James Lankford Commentary: The Abortion Industry’s ‘Very Safe’ Lie Is Putting Women at Very Big Risk

James Lankford

It sounds so simple. Take these pills, and your problem will be over—except, it isn’t. People do not forget an event so significant. A few months ago, social media went into a frenzy when Britney Spears shared that she was pressured by her boyfriend 20 years ago to take abortion pills. After two decades she still described the chemical abortion as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.” She is not alone.

The abortion industry has worked overtime to convince women that chemical abortions are “very safe”—even making the claim that they are safer than Tylenol. They attempt to conflate chemical abortions with contraceptive pills to push them on moms as a “safe” way to end a pregnancy. But the drugs used in a chemical abortion are far more dangerous.

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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Ethics Complaint Being Reviewed

Kentaji Brown Jackson

An ethics complaint filed against the Supreme Court’s newest justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is being reviewed by a committee with the Judicial Conference, which is the policy making body for federal courts. 

The Center for Renewing America, a conservative non-profit, filed the complaint last month against Jackson, alleging that she “willfully failed to disclose required information regarding her husband’s medical malpractice consulting income for over a decade.”

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Commentary: Trump’s Ballot Disqualification Case Reaches Supreme Court

In what may turn out to be the most pivotal election case since Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a short order on Jan. 5 granting the request by former President Donald Trump asking the court to overturn the Colorado state Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 decision disqualifying him from appearing on the state’s presidential primary ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court moved with unprecedented speed; Trump filed his petition for certiorari on Jan. 3, and the court granted the appeal only two days later.

The case has been put on what, for the Supreme Court, is a “rocket docket.” Trump’s brief and any amicus briefs supporting the former president in Trump v. Anderson have to be filed by Jan. 18; the challengers’ brief and amicus briefs supporting Trump’s removal have to be filed by Jan. 31. Trump’s reply brief is due on Feb. 5, and oral arguments will be held on Feb. 8. 

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Feds Hide Anti-White Discrimination Complaints, Names of Policy Architects from FOIA Suits

Work Office

How many anti-white discrimination complaints have been leveled by employees against the federal watchdog for workplace discrimination? Who is shaping federal policy on “indigenous knowledge” and its implications for scientific research?

The public apparently won’t get those answers unless a judge says so.

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Religious Liberty Had Major Court, Legislative Wins in 2023

Advocates for faith won several major victories this year through the legislature and the court, despite a growing hostility toward religious communities.

There were several examples of anti-religious sentiment over the past year, some of which included an FBI-drafted memo targeting traditional Catholics as “potential domestic terrorists” and the University of West Virginia’s transgender training labeling Christians as oppressors. However, 2023 also boasted several victories for religious Americans in schools, the workplace and the pro-life movement.

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Florida Man Pleads Guilty for Threatening to Kill Chief Justice

Chief Justice John Roberts

A Florida man pleaded guilty Monday to threatening to kill a Supreme Court justice, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Neal Brij Sidhwaney, 43, placed a call in July to the Supreme Court, leaving an “expletive-laden, threatening voicemail message” where he “repeatedly threatened to kill a specific Supreme Court Justice,” according to the DOJ. Sidhwaney revealed the justice he had threatened was Chief Justice John Roberts during a court-ordered psychological evaluation, Politico reported.

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Commentary: Is SCOTUS Poised to Overturn Key J6 Felony Count?

An order published by the Supreme Court on December 13 represented a moment hundreds of January 6 defendants and their loved ones had been waiting for: the highest court granted a writ of certiorari petition in the case of Fischer v. USA.

In a nutshell, after more than two years of litigation before federal judges in Washington, SCOTUS will review the Department of Justice’s use of 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding, in January 6 cases. A “splintered” 2-1 appellate court ruling issued in April just barely endorsed the DOJ’s unprecedented interpretation of the statute, passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the aftermath of the Enron/Arthur Anderson accounting scandal.

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Supreme Court to Weigh Major Case on Abortion Pill Approval

The Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it is taking on a case regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the chemical abortion pill mifepristone.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations filed a lawsuit against the FDA in November 2022, claiming that the FDA had ignored safety protocols to approve the abortion pill mifepristone. The Supreme Court said this week that it would hear the case, one of the first major abortion cases taken up by the court since overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022, according to an order list.

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Supreme Court Takes Case with Major Implications for Trump, Jan. 6 Defendants

The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear a case with major implications for hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as former President Donald Trump’s indictment on charges stemming from alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In a brief order, the justices agreed to hear a case stemming from Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer’s request to dismiss a charge against him for obstructing an official proceeding. His case provides the Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on the scope of a statute, Section 1512(c)(2), which he argues has been used to charge hundreds of other defendants in an “unprecedented extension of the statute’s reach.”

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Commentary: Overturning ‘Roe v. Wade’ Has Already Saved 32,000 Babies

You know there’s something to celebrate when The New York Times is forced to report in its headline: “The first estimate of births since Dobbs found that almost a quarter of women who would have gotten abortions carried their pregnancies to term.”

The number of infant lives saved by last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision is estimated at 32,000, according to a report by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Middlebury College, and the German Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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Idaho Asks Supreme Court to Stop Federal Government from Using ERs as ‘Enclave’ for Abortions

Idaho is asking the Supreme Court to intervene and allow the state to enforce its pro-life law despite the Biden Administration’s efforts to block it by allowing abortions in emergency rooms, according to court documents.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is meant to ensure that all patients who request emergency room treatment are examined, but Idaho argued in its court filing Monday that the law turns “protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply.”

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Liberal ‘Dark Money’ Groups Gave Millions to SCOTUS Watchdogs Targeting Alito, Thomas, Docs Show

Nonprofit organizations managed by the liberal “dark money” consulting firm Arabella Advisors gave millions of dollars to “nonpartisan” Supreme Court watchdogs, new documents show, after a campaign was launched earlier this year targeting conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito for not fully disclosing their finances.

Former Clinton appointee Eric Kessler founded Arabella Advisors in 2005, and its subsidiaries include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Hopewell Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Windward Fund and the North Fund. 

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Federal Appeals Court Ruling Could Gut Voting Rights Act

A crucial decision by a federal appeals court on Monday could lead to the Voting Rights Act (VRA) losing much of its strength as a law, should the decision be upheld by the Supreme Court.

Politico reports that the ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals declared that only the federal government is allowed to sue under a key section of the civil rights law, not private citizens or civil rights groups, which had used the law to do so in the past.

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Supreme Court Releases Code of Conduct

The U.S. Supreme Court released its own “Code of Conduct” on Monday evening to “set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.”

The Code of Conduct comes after intense pressure from liberal activist groups for the justices to implement an ethics code. Those activists particularly have taken aim at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, accusing him of violating the court’s ethics rules.

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Commentary: Domestic Violence Protection Orders Don’t Pass Constitutional Muster

How certain should we be that someone did something wrong before they lose their right to own a gun? Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could have a major impact on how courts evaluate the constitutionality of gun control laws. The Biden administration asked for a review of the 5th Circuit Court’s decision not to deprive Zackey Rahimi of his right to own guns. 

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Commentary: The Left Ramps Up the Supreme Court Intimidation Campaign

The Left’s campaign of vilification and intimidation to try to control the Supreme Court is a saga with a number of shameful chapters dating back to the smearing of Robert Bork in 1987. Their game plan is simple: defeat originalist nominees to the Court by whatever illegitimate attacks can be conjured up. Failing that, bully and delegitimize the Supreme Court justices who are not deciding cases with the policy-driven activism that is the hallmark of the modern Left. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has made this his mission.

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Supreme Court Takes Up Landmark Government Censorship Case

The Supreme Court on Friday took up Missouri v. Biden, the free speech case challenging the Biden administration’s efforts to censor content on social media, while issuing a pause on a preliminary injunction granted by a lower court.

Republican attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana sued the Biden administration over its communications with social media companies related to the suppression of online speech, arguing it violated the First Amendment. District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty issued an injunction in July blocking certain parts of President Joe Biden’s administration from colluding with social media platforms to censor content online. The Supreme Court paused the injunction, but agreed to take up the case, according to the court order.

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SCOTUS Backs Biden Admin ‘Ghost Guns’ Rule for Second Time

The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a federal judge’s order suspending the Biden administration’s “ghost guns” rule, which regulates gun parts kits as traditional firearms.

After blocking U.S. District for the Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision to vacate the rule nationwide in August, the Supreme Court vacated O’Connor’s more recent Sept. 14 injunction suspending enforcement of the regulation against two manufacturing companies, Blackhawk Manufacturing and Defense Distributed. The justice’s decision leaves in place the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “Frame or Receiver” rule, which expands the definition of firearm to encompass parts kits that are “readily convertible to functional weapons” or “functional ‘frames’ or ‘receivers’ of weapons.

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Supreme Court Issues Another Temporary Pause on Injunction Against Biden Admin Censorship Efforts

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday issued another stay of an injunction blocking the Biden administration from encouraging social media companies to censor speech.

Alito’s administrative stay blocks the injunction originally issued by District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty until Oct. 20, giving the justices more time to consider the Biden administration’s request for a longer stay on the injunction and to take up the case. Alito has issued short stays against the injunction twice, with the last one expiring Sept. 27.

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Justice Clarence Thomas to Hear Gun Rights Lawsuit from New York

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will hear a lawsuit that has been filed by pro-Second Amendment groups in New York, challenging the state’s strict laws on the concealed carrying of firearms.

As reported by Just The News, Justice Thomas has arranged for a conference with the entire court that will take place on October 6th, during which he will consider a challenge to the New York Concealed Carry Improvement Act’s provision on background checks for purchases of ammunition. The law went into effect just several weeks ago.

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Supreme Court Extends Pause on Appeals Court Ruling on Biden Admin Censorship Efforts

The Supreme Court on Friday extended its stay on an injunction blocking the Biden administration from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to censor speech.

Justice Samuel Alito temporarily froze the injunction until Sept. 22 last week after the Biden administration requested a stay. On Friday, the justices extended the stay to Sept. 27.

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A Closer Look at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Bold Plan to Take Down the Administrative State

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy proposed a plan on Wednesday to halve the size of the federal administrative state in his first year in office — should he be elected.

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GOP Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Says He’d Win a Legal Challenge to His Plan to Slash the Administrative State

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy knows there would be legal challenges to his sweeping plan to drastically reduce the size of the administrative state. The 38-year-old political outsider knows the big government left won’t give up the heart of the D.C swamp without a bruising fight.

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The Supreme Court Could Weigh In on Alleged ‘Overcriminalization’ of January 6 Cases

Two Jan. 6 defendants are asking the Supreme Court to correct what they argue is “prosecutorial overcharging” before their cases go to trial.

Edward Lang and Garrett Miller, who allegedly both entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, are asking the Supreme Court to dismiss an obstruction charge against them before their trials, alleging prosecutors broadened an unrelated statute to “over-penalize” those who participated in the riots, according to their petitions. If the Supreme Court takes the case, it could have broad implications for hundreds of other Jan. 6 defendants indicted under the statute.

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Corporate America Slowly Backs Away from ‘Diversity’ Language in Wake of Supreme Court Decision

American businesses have been moving away from using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) language in the workplace after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in June, according to Bloomberg Law.

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Football Coach Who Won Landmark Court Case on Public Prayer Resigns

Joe Kennedy resigned from his position as assistant football coach at Bremerton High School on Wednesday after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in June 2022 allowed him to pray on the football field, according to Kennedy’s website.

Kennedy coached his first game since 2015 on Sept. 1 after he was suspended for refusing to stop praying on the field after each game. He had expressed before the game that he was unsure how long he would stay on as a coach and ultimately offered his resignation this week, citing the ailing health of a family member out of state and a desire to become an advocate for religious freedom, according to a statement from Kennedy’s website.

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