Tag: Supreme Court

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

Minnesota Sun Staff
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

Just the News
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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Just the News
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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Julie Kelly

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Just the News

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

Just the News

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

RealClearWire

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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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17 Minnesota DFL Legislators Sign Brief Asking Supreme Court to Preserve Access to Abortion Pill

Minnesota Sun Staff

Seventeen Democrat legislators from Minnesota have attached their names to an amicus brief last week that asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appellate court decision that would roll back the public’s access to mifepristone, an abortion-inducing medication.

The DFLers joined a group of more than 600 Democrat legislators from 49 states in signing onto the brief, which asks the nation’s highest court to reject the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ August ruling in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine that concluded several decisions the FDA took in 2016 to make mifepristone more broadly available to women were illegal.

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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

M.D. Kittle

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

M.D. Kittle

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

Minnesota Sun Staff

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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Football Coach Who Won Landmark Court Case on Public Prayer Resigns

Minnesota Sun Staff

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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Affirmative Action Opponent Takes on Military Academy Exemption

Minnesota Sun Staff

The student group that defeated affirmative action in the Supreme Court is turning their attention to American military academies exempted from the ban.

The group is currently collecting experiences of students who applied to the Air Force, Army and Navy military academies.

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Coach at Center of Religious Supreme Court Victory Says He Has ‘A Lot of Angst’ About Returning to the Field

Minnesota Sun Staff

High School Assistant Coach Joe Kennedy said he’s nervous about returning to the football field Friday after winning a years-long battle in the Supreme Court in 2022 allowing him to pray on the field, according to an interview with the Associated Press.

Bremerton High School, located in Washington state, is having its opening game of the season and it will be the first time Kennedy has coached since 2015 after he was suspended by Bremerton School District (BSD) for refusing to stop praying on the field, according to the AP. Kennedy expressed that he was nervous about people’s expectations and the reaction to him praying after the game.

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Commentary: The Left’s Relentless, Unjustified Assaults on the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy

Minnesota Sun Staff

In recent years, the Supreme Court has been the target of a relentless and strategic campaign aimed at undermining its credibility and impartiality.

Left-wing publications such as ProPublica, Slate, and The Guardian have led an orchestrated assault against the high court’s Republican-appointed justices, and their message has been amplified by Senate Democrats.

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Trump Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in Lawsuits Against Him, Citing ‘Election Interference’

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump on Friday called on the Supreme Court to intervene in the numerous lawsuits against him, citing it as election interference.

“CRAZY! My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump posted on TRUTH Social.

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Commentary: Three Observations and Predictions About Affirmative Action in Universities Moving Forward

Minnesota Sun Staff

Following the recent Supreme Court decision overturning race-conscious admissions, certain sections of the media have adopted an alarmist tone, fueling doomsday predictions. Others are keen to celebrate the end of discriminatory practices that educational institutions have adopted for nearly 60 years.

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Federal Lawsuit Targets Race-Based Government Grant Decisions Alleged to Discriminate Against White and Other Business Owners

M.D. Kittle

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action in college admisssions, a San Antonio-based government program that allegedly uses race-based preferences to hand out federal grants faces a federal discrimination lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed this week by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), could spark a national re-examination of such taxpayer-funded, race-focused initiatives.

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Jan. 6 Defendant Appeals to Supreme Court in Case that Could Upend Hundreds of Riot Charges

Just the News

Jan. 6 defendant Edward Jacob Lang is asking the Supreme Court to hear his challenge against one of the 11 charges he was indicted on – obstruction of an official proceeding – in a case that could upend legal proceedings against hundreds of other defendants indicted on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. 

The obstruction charge could be levied against “anyone who attends at a public demonstration gone awry,” attorneys for Lang wrote in an appeal to the Supreme Court last week. The proceeding for which the charge was brought refers to the event where Congress certifies the Electoral College votes to confirm the president.

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Despite Supreme Court Smackdown, Biden Admin Plans to Wipe $39 Billion in Student Debt

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Department of Education (DOE) announced Friday that it will automatically forgive $39 billion of student loan debt for more than 804,000 borrowers, following a recent ruling by the Supreme Court that blocked the administration’s plan to grant forgiveness to nearly 40 million Americans.

The DOE will start notifying borrowers Friday that their federal student loans “will be automatically discharged in the coming weeks,” according to a DOE press release. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that the Biden administration cannot use executive power to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt for non-Pell Grant recipients and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

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Commentary: Biden Begins Shadow Loan Forgiveness Plan

Minnesota Sun Staff

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness proposal which would have forgiven $10,000-$20,000 of student loans per borrower. But the fight for student loan forgiveness isn’t going anywhere.

In a previous article for FEE, I highlighted how student loan forgiveness has already been happening and started under president Trump due to the freeze on interest accumulation. Although this may not be as visible as a $10,000 lower balance, frozen interest means the real cost of taking a loan out became smaller than the initial terms suggested.

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Commentary: Two Americas Collide at the Supreme Court

Minnesota Sun Staff

When President Biden fumed that the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling is “not normal,” he spoke more truth than he may have intended. It is certainly not normal nowadays to acknowledge, even implicitly, that discrimination against whites is possible, or even wrong. The Supreme Court blasted the vaporous pretexts that elites have used to justify this invidious scheme, which has carried on indefinitely, feasting on countless dreams without satisfying a bottomless hunger of unquantifiable grievance. The sentimental and, arguably, self-serving wailing of the dissenters, particularly Justice Jackson, draws from that same source.

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Commentary: America Needs to Update Its Labor Union Laws

Minnesota Sun Staff

For years, labor unions have been exempt from the consequences of destroying private property. Would you like a higher wage or salary? Sounds good! So, how would you go about persuading your employer to give you a raise? Why not vandalize some of your employer’s property with your labor union, or at least threaten to do so unless the boss gives you the raise you want?

Let’s say you want to get hired for a certain job, but you are worried that another applicant might get the job you want. Should you slash the tires on the other person’s car and threaten to pound him with a baseball bat if he doesn’t disappear?

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Harvard Facing New Civil Rights Complaints After Affirmative Action Ruling

Minnesota Sun Staff

Following a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court effectively ending the practice of race-based preferences in college admissions, Harvard University is facing new civil rights challenges over its practice of legacy admissions.

As reported by The Hill, the Ivy League university is now facing complaints from the Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a left-wing group representing black and Hispanic groups based in the New England area. LCR’s complaint claims that “each year, Harvard College grants special preference in its admissions process to hundreds of mostly White students — not because of anything they have accomplished, but rather solely because of who their relatives are.”

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Judge Orders Biden Administration to Limit Contact with Social Media Platforms

Just the News

A Louisiana federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Biden administration to limit its contact with social media platforms, determining that the government likely violated the First Amendment by working to censor disfavored political viewpoints online. Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointed U.S. District Court judge, issued a preliminary injunction barring federal officials and agencies from contacting social media firms to seek the removal of protected speech, Politico reported.

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U.S. Supreme Court Again Vacates Judgement Against Oregon Bakers

The Center Square
Aaron and Melissa Klein

For the second time, the U.S. Supreme Court has vacated a lower court decision against a Christian couple in Oregon who were punished for not making a cake for a same-sex wedding.

In an orders list release Friday, the nation’s highest court vacated the decision against Aaron and Melissa Klein in their ongoing litigation with the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries.

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