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Biden DOJ’s Response to Pregnancy Center Attacks Shows ‘Double Standard,’ Pro-Life Advocates and Legal Experts Say

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In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, pregnancy centers, churches and abortion clinics have been hit with a wave of violence, but pro-life advocates and legal experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation raised concerns that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is applying a “double standard” when investigating these crimes.

Over 100 churches, pregnancy centers and their staff have been firebombed, vandalized, graffitied, assaulted and intimidated since the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs opinion in May 2022, according to a May 2023 report from the Family Research Center. Yet the DOJ has failed to use the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services” and places of religious worship, to charge the individuals responsible, despite going after dozens of incidents targeting abortion clinics, according to advocates and legal experts that spoke with the DCNF.

“We have well over 300 churches, Catholic churches, that have been everything from firebombed, robbed and spray painted, alongside pregnancy care centers as well,” Tom McClusky, CatholicVote’s director of Government Affairs, told the DCNF. “And I believe the only time that the FACE Act has been used is for some people down in Florida and the Justice Department will not verify a [Freedom Of Information Act] request asking how many times has this been used.”

Rev. Jim Harden, president of the pro-life organization CompassCare, which was firebombed by pro-abortion activists in 2022, told the DCNF that he believed “without hesitation” the DOJ’s behavior “is a double standard.” He also noted the recent conviction of a woman, who spray-painted “LIARS” on one of the organization’s signs in New York’s Erie County. (Read more from “Biden DOJ’s Response to Pregnancy Center Attacks Shows ‘Double Standard,’ Pro-Life Advocates and Legal Experts Say” HERE)

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The Supreme Court Could Weigh In on Whether Colleges’ Speech Police Are Legal

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The Supreme Court could weigh in on the constitutionality of so-called bias response teams at colleges in the U.S., which free speech organizations say are used to discriminate against political viewpoints and to chill free speech.

Bias response teams are systems created to monitor alleged biased speech on college campuses, which often end up with students reporting other students for politically disfavored speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Students are then brought before administrators in what can be a long-drawn-out process that discourages students from speaking their minds and expressing disfavored viewpoints, which free speech advocates argue violates the First Amendment.

The Alumni Free Speech Alliance, a group of over a dozen free speech alumni organizations, alleges that bias response teams are used to target individuals and often cause students to self-censor, resulting in less intellectual freedom on campuses. The groups filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of advocate group Speech First, which is suing Virginia Tech over its bias-response team.

“In history, it’s always repressive regimes that pick a scapegoat and sometimes not even with aforethought. It just happens they rile up the crowds against them. And that’s what these bias systems are used for,” Chuck Davis, president of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, told the DCNF. (Read more from “The Supreme Court Could Weigh In on Whether Colleges’ Speech Police Are Legal” HERE)

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Trump’s Eligibility for 2024 Ballot Headed to U.S. Supreme Court?

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The Supreme Court could have the final word on the validity of 14th Amendment arguments for removing Trump from the 2024 ballot, legal experts on both sides of the debate told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Since the left-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed its lawsuit seeking to remove Trump from the ballot in Colorado on Sept. 6, cases have been filed in Minnesota, Oklahoma and New Mexico, among other states. With these and other efforts underway, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Supreme Court will likely have to settle whether Trump should be removed from the ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which bars certain government officials who took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

“If a Secretary of State disqualifies Trump from the ballot, then Trump and his campaign will have standing to sue and if the lower courts rule against Trump, then the case will most certainly end up in the Supreme Court on an appeal,” Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “For a number of constitutional and procedural reasons, the Court is almost certain to rule in Trump’s favor.”

In Maryland, Secretary of State Susan Lee expressed that she would consider removing Trump’s name from the ballot, according to The Daily Record. The Office of the Secretary of State is responsible for determining which names appear on the presidential ballot in Maryland. (Read more from “Trump’s Eligibility for 2024 Ballot Headed to U.S. Supreme Court?” HERE)

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Back From the Dead: Supreme Court Reinstates ‘Ghost’ Gun Restrictions

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The Supreme Court granted a request on Tuesday from the Biden administration to reinstate a federal regulation targeted at limiting the production of “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.

By a 5-4 decision, the justices stalled a July 5 ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, which blocked the 2022 rule nationwide pending the administration’s appeal. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh said they would have denied the application for a stay.

The Biden administration introduced the regulations last year to tackle what it cited as a dramatic uptick in the availability of ghost guns, which are known as firearm-making kits available online that people can assemble or sometimes even 3D print at home.

The regulations, implemented by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, require creators or sellers of the kits to obtain a special license, mark products with traceable serial numbers, and conduct background checks while maintaining records. Those rules led to challenges in court, and so far, two federal judges have sided in favor of the government. (Read more from “Back From the Dead: Supreme Court Reinstates ‘Ghost’ Gun Restrictions” HERE)

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Trump Calls on Supreme Court to ‘Intercede’ in Legal Battles

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Former President Donald Trump on Friday called on the Supreme Court to “intercede” in his mounting legal battles.

Trump excoriated his political enemies on social media one day after he pleaded not guilty to federal changes in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot and 2020 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 wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform Friday morning.

Trump added that resources that could have gone to advertisements and rallies will now have to be spent fighting the “Radical Left Thugs” in courts across the country. . .

“It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede. MAGA!” Trump wrote. (Read more from “Trump Calls on Supreme Court to ‘Intercede’ in Legal Battles” HERE)

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Jim Banks to Grill Military Academy Heads on Race-Based Admissions

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House lawmakers plan to grill leaders of the military service academies on their use of race-based admissions at a hearing scheduled for July 19 after a Supreme Court ruling overturning affirmative action did not confirm whether service academies could be exempt.

The Supreme Court ruled on June 29 that universities’ affirmative action policies violated the Constitution’s guarantees of equal treatment for all races, but left open a question of addressing racial preference in military service academies’ admissions decisions, according to the opinion. Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who chairs the Military Personnel Subcommittee on the House’s armed services panel, will lead the probe next week into how U.S. military academies’ prioritize attracting and admitting future officers of minority races or ethnicities.

“Colorblindness and consistent standards are very important in universities, but in our officer corps they’re life and death issues,” Banks told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Members of the panel will also grill witnesses from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy on topics including curriculum development and diversity of thought, according to the committee website.

“Every American should be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin and race-based preferences don’t belong in schools, the military, or anywhere else in America. The Supreme Court issued the right ruling, but it should have applied to service academies too,” Banks told the DCNF. (Read more from “Jim Banks to Grill Military Academy Heads on Race-Based Admissions” HERE)

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More Black Americans Support SCOTUS’ Affirmative Action Ruling Than Oppose It: Poll

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A plurality of black Americans support the Supreme Court’s decision last month that struck down race-based admission policies at colleges, according to a YouGov/The Economist poll.

In the survey, 44% of black respondents said they at least somewhat supported the Supreme Court’s rulings in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down the use of race-based admissions policies. By comparison, 36% of the black respondents to the poll disapproved of the decision.

Overall, nearly three-fifths of respondents, 59%, approved of the Supreme Court ruling, compared to 27% who disapproved, with 45% of Hispanic respondents supporting the decision, compared to 30% disapproval. The poll did not reveal reactions from Asian-Americans to the ruling. (Read more from “More Black Americans Support SCOTUS’ Affirmative Action Ruling Than Oppose It: Poll” HERE)

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Most Americans Support Supreme Court Decision on Affirmative Action: Poll

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Despite scenes of protest and statements of disapproval from the leadership of colleges and universities across the country, the majority of Americans are supportive of the recent Supreme Court decision restricting race-based college admissions.

According to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted after the High Court’s decision on Thursday, 52% of Americans believe the ruling against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s affirmative action policies was the right one. On the other hand, 32% of Americans disapprove of the decision, while 16% are unsure, ABC News reported.

The poll found that the vast majority of Republicans, 75%, and most independents, 58%, agree with Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett on race-based admissions. Just 26% of Democrats feel the same way, according to the poll.

Broken down along racial lines, most white people, 60%, think the decision was the right one, while 58% of Asians agree. Among Hispanics, 40% approve and 40% disapprove, and 52% of black people disapprove of the Court’s decision. (Read more from “Most Americans Support Supreme Court Decision on Affirmative Action: Poll” HERE)

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Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan

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The Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s program writing off hundreds of billions of dollars in federally held student loan debt Friday, ruling that the commander-in-chief had overstepped his executive authority.

On the last day before the high court’s summer recess, the six conservative justices ruled the $400 billion plan could not use a 2003 law meant to help veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as a vehicle to implement the program.

Instead, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, the law allows the Education Department to only “waive or modify” existing programs implemented under the federal Education Act of 1965, not “rewrite that statute from the ground up.”

“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it,” the chief justice added. “So too here, where the Secretary of Education claims the authority, on his own, to release 43 million borrowers from their obligations to repay $430 billion in student loans. The Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude”.

Roberts added that the administration had fallen short of demonstrating that it had “‘clear congressional authorization’ to justify the challenged program.” (Read more from “Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan” HERE)

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Christian Mailman Who Refused to Work Sundays Scores Supreme Court Win

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A Christian postal worker who quit after he was given grief for refusing to work Sundays had his discrimination lawsuit reinstated by the US Supreme Court Thursday.

Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian from Pennsylvania, sued the USPS in 2019, claiming that he was forced to leave his job after he received warnings and suspensions for refusing to work Sundays so he could observe the Sabbath.

Groff, 45, alleged the agency discriminated against him by failing to approve his religious accommodation to not be scheduled on Sundays.

The high court unanimously reinstated Groff’s case — which was thrown out by a lower court — finding that workplaces must give accommodations to religious workers unless the modifications cause “substantial increased costs” to the business.

The Supreme Court said that companies could no longer shirk religious accommodations on a reading of case law that they only prove minimal — “de minimis,” in legal parlance — negative effects to business. (Read more from “Christian Mailman Who Refused to Work Sundays Scores Supreme Court Win” HERE)

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