President Donald Trump confirmed Monday that rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs asked him for a pardon after being sentenced to more than four years in prison for charges related to prostitution.
“I have had a lot of people ask me for pardons," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I call him Puff Daddy. He has asked me for a pardon," Trump added.
The clip of Trump's comments was brief and didn't address whether Trump planned to grant the pardon.
It was only three days ago that Combs was sentenced to four years and two months in prison, which was a much lighter sentence than the 11 years prosecutors were seeking.
Combs was also acquitted by the jury on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, the most serious charges he faced.
But instead of considering that he got off easy, he has persisted in saying he shouldn't have been prosecuted at all and is looking to get off scot free.
Combs was accused of holding sex parties at his home and pressuring some who attended to engage in sexual acts with male and female prostitutes.
There was also testimony that he sexually assaulted several underage boys and girls, but that testimony was part of several civil suits against Combs, not part of his criminal trial.
It would be a mistake for Trump to pardon Combs, based on the accusations against him that are still unresolved.
Trump recently pardoned Todd and Julie Chrisley from the reality TV show, "Chrisley Knows Best."
The Chrisleys were convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud, and were serving long prison sentences for their crimes.
They quickly revived their reality show and went back to business as usual, although let's hope they pay their taxes from this point forward.
The pardon didn't really make sense for Trump, so who knows what he'll do about Combs' request.
The Supreme Court will weigh a pivotal case this week on who has the right to challenge election laws.
The conservative watchdog Judicial Watch sued on behalf of Illinois congressman Mike Bost (R) who is challenging a state law that allows mail-in ballots to be accepted two weeks late, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day, Just The News reported.
The Supreme Court is not weighing the merits of the law itself, but whether Bost has the right to challenge it, a concept known as "standing."
Bost's legal challenge had been rejected by lower courts, which found he lacked standing to bring the case.
While it turns on a seemingly dry procedural question, the consequences of the case could be far-reaching.
That is because without legal standing, there is no way for a political candidate to challenge election rules that invite cheating, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
According to Fitton, the Supreme Court is deciding nothing less than whether candidates can "sue to stop an election from being stolen.”
Russ Nobile, a senior attorney for Judicial Watch, noted that "many cases didn't go anywhere" in 2020 because of standing.
More than four years later, the legal picture remains muddled, but Judicial Watch hopes the Supreme Court will finally provide some clarity.
Otherwise, "it could be a green light to the left to engage in the manipulation of election practices," Fitton warned.
Some left-wing groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and League of Women Voters are supporting Bost's challenge on procedural grounds.
"While the League and its state and local affiliates have fought to advance state laws like the one challenged here, and thus vehemently oppose Petitioners’ position on the merits, they often find themselves in the same position that Representative Bost does here: injured because a challenged election rule materially interferes with their pre-existing core activities and drains resources that would otherwise be deployed elsewhere,” the groups wrote.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case, Rep. Michael J. Bost, Laura Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews, on Wednesday.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Already, the FBI has dumped the agenda, influence and ideology of the Southern Poverty Law Center, that leftist organization that made a reputation for fighting the KKK back in the day, but now has turned into nothing more than a "partisan smear machine."
And now there's a petition urging the Department of Justice to treat the leftist activists who routinely describe ordinary Christian organizations across the nation as "hate" organizations the same way.
It was FBI Director Kash Patel who just days ago said the bureau has severed all ties to the SPLC.
"The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine," Patel told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday. "Their so-called hate map has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence."
The SPLC's hate map even has triggered a terrorist attack on a Christian group.
Now, a report in the Washington Stand confirms a petition organized by the Family Research Council is urging the DOJ to take the same path.
The FRC organized a petition backed by more than 30,000 signers that is urging a "complete purge" of SPLC influence from the federal government.
The petition was handed to the DOJ on Friday.
It indicted the SPLC as a "partisan smear machine" that unfairly and inaccurately has "vilified faith-driven groups like FRC, fostering national discord and, tragically, violence."
"We need the entire Department of Justice and the rest of the federal government to sever ties with them too," the FRC explained.
The use of the SPLC hate agenda as a trigger for violence dates to 2012, when, according to the report, "Floyd Corkins II scoured the online resource for targets, zeroing in on FRC's Washington, D.C., headquarters. Armed with a 9mm handgun and a cache of 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Corkins entered the building intent on carnage."
The report said, "FRC building manager Leo Johnson heroically subdued the attacker, sustaining a gunshot wound in the process and preventing further tragedy. Corkins later confessed he planned to stuff the sandwiches into the faces of those he killed as a symbolic protest against the chain's support for traditional marriage values. And yet, the SPLC's designations persist."
The SPLC now even has claimed the ADF and Focus on the Family are part of America's "hate."
"The SPLC also listed Turning Point USA on their 'hate and extremism' report — the organization founded by the recently assassinated Christian and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk," the report said.
The report noted the SPLC has a "long history" of influence operations on FBI training materials and such.
Despite its name, the SPLC has an endowment of more than $700 million, compensates its leaders handsomely, and possesses more than $30 million in offshore accounts, according to IRS filings.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday is scheduled to hear the demands from leftists in the state of Colorado to censor the speech of Christian counselors.
Officials in the leftist state who multiple times have demanded the authority to censor Christians in the state have claimed that the counselors' speech is "behavior," which they say they can regulate.
But their agenda is clear in the details of their fight: They insist that no counselor can encourage a patient to consider NOT being LGBT. But promotions of the LGBT lifestyle choices are fully encouraged.
Those same officials in Colorado repeatedly have tried to censor other Christians' speech, including that of Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips, who refused to violate his Christian faith by promoting deviant wedding arrangements.
The Supreme Court, in that case, scolded the state for its "hostility" to Christians. Then state officials doubled down, trying the same stunt with a web designer. And they lost again in court.
The case at issue involves licensed counselor Kaley Chiles, who is represented by the ADF.
"Chiles wants to help young people distressed about their gender achieve their chosen goal to grow comfortable with their bodies and avoid harmful drugs and procedures," the legal team said.
"But Colorado law forbids her from doing so."
Already, the U.S. government and 21 states, in addition to counseling groups, detransitioners, mental-health researchers, free speech advocates and others, are supporting Chiles' arguments.
"The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors,:" said lawyer Jim Campbell. "There is a growing consensus around the world that adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria need love and an opportunity to talk through their struggles and feelings. Colorado's law harms these young people by depriving them of caring and compassionate conversations with a counselor who helps them pursue the goals they desire."
The legal team charged, "Chiles argues that Colorado's law violates her freedom of speech by prohibiting licensed counselors like her from engaging in counseling conversations with clients under age 18 who want to change some expression, behavior, identity, or feeling associated with their 'sexual orientation or gender identity.'"
The lawyers pointed out that the Democrat-led state, commanded at this time by Democrat homosexual Gov. Jared Polis, schemed to set up in the law a prohibition on counseling conversations "in one direction."
"For example, it allows counseling conversations that push young people toward a gender identity different than their sex but prohibits conversations that help them grow comfortable with their sex when they desire to do that. The law also threatens severe penalties, including suspension and even revocation of the counselor's license. This one-sided censorship comes amidst a growing national mental-health crisis and prevents many Colorado children from obtaining the counseling that they desire—and that is likely to help them."
The ADF said, "Many of Chiles' clients come to her because they share her Christian worldview and faith-based values. These clients believe their lives will be more fulfilling if they are aligned with the teachings of their faith. Yet Colorado law censors Chiles from speaking words her clients want to hear because the government does not like the view she expresses."
Detractors have called such counseling "conversion therapy" but the misnomer isn't accurate since the counseling actually involves helping patients come to grips with their own reality.
Judges in Colorado, who have moved so far into the leftist agenda the all-Democrat state Supreme Court actually tried to prevent President Donald Trump from being on the ballot in 2024, before being rebuked by the Supreme Court, have advocated for the state's censorship position.
There already is a split among federal appeals courts on the dispute, a key factor that the Supreme Court considers in accepting cases.
The 3rd and 11th circuit courts have found such bans suppress protected speech.
The state censorship plan is based on viewpoint restrictions, which the Supreme Court has opposed in previous cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed at President Donald Trump's urging to review Hawaii's gun law that restricts people from carrying a firearm on private property unless the owner specifically allows it.
The Trump administration encouraged the court to rule on the Hawaii law in light of its 2022 ruling that expanded Second Amendment protections broadly.
Three Hawaii residents sued the state's attorney general, Anne E. Lopez, and the lower courts split on the decision.
The district court blocked the law, but the appeals court reversed the decision. In April, the petitioners submitted the case to the Supreme Court.
"In holding the Second Amendment does not apply to private property open to the public, the Ninth Circuit’s decision renders illusory the right to carry in public," attorneys Kevin O'Grady and Alan Alexander Beck wrote in the petition.
In May, the United States filed a supporting brief urging the reversal of the appeals court ruling.
"The structure and operation of Hawaii's law reveal that the law serves no legitimate purpose and instead seeks only to inhibit the exercise of the right to bear arms," Solicitor General D. John Sauer, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, Deputy Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris and Assistant to the Solicitor General Vivek Suri wrote.
The brief also called the rule a "near-complete ban" that "deprives individuals who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights of their ability to 'go about their daily lives.'”
Opposing counsel argued that the law balances gun rights and public safety.
"Neither petitioners nor the government has offered any persuasive reason to disturb the court of appeals’ conclusion that Hawai‘i’s default-property rule withstands constitutional scrutiny at the preliminary injunction stage," the opposing brief read.
No timetable was given for when the case will be heard, but the acceptance of the case means it will be heard and a ruling given in the coming months.
If the case does overturn the Hawaii law, it would still restrict guns on private property to those who have obtained permits and followed other gun laws in the state.
Gun control advocates warn that more guns in malls and offices could lead to more shootings.
Gun control opponents say that more lawful gun carrying could stop potential shooters and protect the public.
Many believe that the person who plotted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh got off with an embarrassingly light sentence -- so much so that the Department of Justice is stepping in.
According to the New York Post, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed over the weekend that she will appeal the "woefully insufficient" sentence handed down to what she described as a "profoundly disturbed individual.'
Attempted killer Nicholas Roske, who later claimed he was transgender, was only sentenced to eight years in prison and lifetime supervision, which is exactly what his defense attorney was hoping for.
The light sentencing sparked outrage, with many immediately demanding that Bondi get involved and work to make it a much tougher punishment.
Bondi held nothing back in her statement, vowing to appeal the ruling, which was handed down by Maryland US District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Joe Biden-appointed judge.
"The attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a disgusting attack against our entire judicial system by a profoundly disturbed individual,” Bondi wrote on X.
She added, "@TheJusticeDept will be appealing the woefully insufficient sentence imposed by the district court, which does not reflect the horrific facts of this case."
Prosecutors from the Justice Department sought a much tougher sentence.
The Post noted:
DOJ prosecutors sought a prison term of 30 years to life for the man who targeted the high court justice in June 2022, arriving in a taxi outside Kavanaugh’s Chevy Chase, Md., home with a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, a tactical light, zip ties, pepper spray and burglary tools.
"The defendant’s actions and intent — which were determined, focused, and undeterred for months — were extremely dangerous to the lives of multiple sitting judges, their family members, and the Constitutional judicial order," DOJ prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo.
They added, "The sentence imposed in this case must send the powerful message, both to the defendant and to others who contemplate committing assassination to obstruct judicial independence, that these ends never justify the means and that the consequences are not worth engaging in these acts."
The would-be killer apologized for his actions, claiming he made a grave mistake and said he felt remorse for his decisions.
“I can see now how destructive and misguided such acts are, and am ashamed to have not recognized these things sooner," he wrote in a court declaration.
Sadly, the judge fell for it, and with any luck, the ruling will be strengthened on Bondi's watch.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A federal judge has ruled that the state of Virginia is not allowed to bar a qualified counselor, focusing on substance abuse, from helping those with addictions.
A report from the Institute for Justice explains that Melissa Brown was barred from seeing patients under a state "barrier crime" law that banishes those with convictions for any of 176 offenses from seeing patients.
That applies to substance abuse counselors and their supervisors.
"Melissa made mistakes when she was young and in the throes of addiction herself," the ID explained. "Those mistakes came to a head in 2001, when she stole a purse to fund her drug habit. She was convicted of robbery, which prompted her to stop using drugs and turn her life around."
"This decision is more than personal," Brown said. "It's a victory for everyone who believes in second chances. I hope this decision opens the door for countless others with lived experience to bring healing to those who are still suffering."
It was after her bout with robbery that she changed, and now she will be allowed to undergo a "screening assessment," then find work.
She had earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and began working with substance abuse victims, specifically heroin, after she left the drug scene.
She had been promoted to clinical supervisor in 2018.
"But, after new management took over the rehab center where she worked, she learned that, under Virginia law, she was banned from working as a counselor due to her decades-old conviction," the IJ said.
She now works at a different rehab center as chief growth officer, but wants to return to helping patients.
"The government should never stop people from working because of irrelevant criminal convictions," said IJ lawyer Andrew Ward. "We're thrilled the court recognized that. But there's still work to do. Every year, Virginia blocks hundreds of qualified professionals for convictions that are more than twenty years old. That has to change, and this decision is just the start."
Added Mike Greenberg, also a lawyer for IJ, "The Constitution requires that restrictions on the right to work be rational. The Court here recognized the obvious: No one could rationally think that barring someone with Melissa's experience and empathy protects people suffering from addiction. It just meant less help for the people who most need it."
A federal appeals court has ruled against President Donald Trump's order ending birthright citizenship in a major setback for the Trump administration.
The three-judge panel issued an injunction that will block Trump's executive order, issued in January, from going into effect. Birthright citizenship has long been abused by illegal immigrants to gain a path to citizenship, and this appeals court seems content to allow such abuse to continue.
In a 100 page ruling, the panel wrote, "The ‘lessons of history’ thus give us every reason to be wary of now blessing this most recent effort to break with our established tradition of recognizing birthright citizenship and to make citizenship depend on the actions of one’s parents rather than, in all but the rarest of circumstances, the simple fact of being born in the United States."
The notion of birthright citizenship is utterly insane and entirely derived from a twisted interpretation of the original Constitutional wording that the left is eager to uphold.
Without birthright citizenship, there would be no way for illegal immigrants to gain a path to citizenship by birthing children in the United States. And without a steady supply of dependent voters, the left wouldn't have power.
This decision to uphold birthright citizenship is setting the stage for a massive battle at the Supreme Court, where the hope is that the conservative justices will rule to finally put an end to birthright citizenship and its decades of abuse.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the charge against Trump's order, reacted to the decision by saying, "Today’s decision upholds a nationwide injunction in our lawsuit challenging the President’s attempt to end, with the stroke of a pen, the constitutional right to birthright citizenship."
He further added, "We will continue to oppose this executive order until the President’s attempt to unmake the Constitution is blocked completely," in acknowledgement of the future battle at the Supreme Court.
The left truly believes that any illegal immigrant who illegally crosses the border or even overstays a visa and gives birth in the United States confers citizenship to that child. It's long past time for the Supreme Court to deal a fatal blow to this absurd legal thinking.
Prior to this ruling, the Department of Justice had already asked the Supreme Court to review Trump's order, and it is expected that this will be one of many major cases that the court will oversee in its next term.
Immigration fraud comes in many different shapes and sizes, but the "anchor baby" strategy is one of the more common forms of fraud and abuse that foreigners exploit to gain citizenship.
The Trump administration has recognized the need to end birthright citizenship in order to put an end to these many types of immigration fraud and get a handle on America's out-of-control immigration crisis.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will review this matter sooner rather than later. This litigation has dragged on for far too long, as this executive order was originally issued nearly a year ago.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he's not interested in overturning the Obergefell ruling that legalized same-sex marriage even though he dissented in the original decision, NBC News reported. The justice said this after Friday, even as a case that would challenge the ruling is pending.
The 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision changed the definition of marriage, but Alito stated during remarks at a Washington, D.C., academic conference that he believes it should remain as previously decided. "In commenting on Obergefell, I am not suggesting that the decision in that case should be overruled," he clarified.
Leftists have celebrated Supreme Court precedents like Obergefell and Roe v. Wade as ironclad and untouchable. However, the 2022 Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended that viewpoint after it abolished the fiat abortion rights conferred by Roe.
A case that could have a similar impact to Obergefell is currently making its way through the Supreme Court, although its success is uncertain. Still, Alito said that wasn't an aim he was after anyway, which is a curious thing to admit before rendering a decision.
Alito decided it was required to give reassurances that the decision that unraveled abortion rights would not be repeated when it comes to the prospect of returning marriage to its natural and historical definition. "As I said in my opinion for the court in Dobbs, more than once, nothing in Dobbs was meant to disturb that decision," Alito said.
The conservative justice said he's a "working judicial originalist," which means that he "strives to achieve originalist aims while working within the framework of our legal system," The Hill reported. He used the Obergefell case as an example after the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment's "broad assurance of equality for all" must apply to something that would have been unthinkable to the framers.
While conceding that this was unlikely to be the original intent of the amendment, Alito said that the precedent was nevertheless untouchable. "Obergefell is a precedent of the court that is entitled to respect afforded by the doctrine of stare decisis," Alito claimed, as if all precedent is forever just by virtue of being decided once.
"And as I said in my opinion for the court in Dobbs, more than once, nothing in Dobbs was meant to disturb that decision," Alito explained. The justice said that his flexibility in upholding a decision he objects to was a better alternative to strict originalism.
"A conscientious judge has no choice but to do what the law requires. But we do not have an asinine or idiotic constitution, so an originalist judge should not cavalierly or happily embrace results that defy common sense," Alito warned.
While the Supreme Court certainly takes precedent into account, there have been several instances where it has overruled previously settled laws, even before the modern example of the Dobbs decision. In issues such as slavery and segregation, the high court has righted its wrongs in later decisions.
Regardless of Alito's reassurances, there's a chance that the case before the court that involves a former Kentucky county clerk's right to refuse to certify same-sex marriages could be the catalyst to reverse Obergefell apart from Dobbs, Fox News reported. In 2015, Kim Davis, who identified as a devout Christian, refused to officiate a wedding between David Ermold and David Moore and was forced by a lower court to pay $360,000 for their legal expenses.
Davis's attorney, Mat Staver, believes his client will win and that the decision will likely follow the high court's reconsideration of Obergefell based on the facts of the case alone. "The First Amendment should be an absolute defense to Kim Davis," Staver asserted.
"And secondly, we're asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell, the 2015 decision that ultimately caused this problem in the first place. For them not to review the matter, I think, is terrible for Kim Davis and also terrible for the country because they've damaged the Constitution, and only the court can fix it," Staver contends.
The decision that legalized gay marriage was made erroneously, and the precedent it set deserves to be reconsidered on that basis. Alito may wish to be diplomatic and show impartiality by supporting it in theory, but the truth is that a bad decision should be rectified no matter how unpopular it is to say so.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Supreme Court on Friday, by a 6-3 majority, said the administration of President Donald Trump could move forward with deportation plans for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who previously had been protected under an order from Joe Biden.
And the justices got a scolding from their newest member in the process.
It was Ketanji Jackson who "rebuked" her colleagues for their "repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" in the issue of those people who are in the United States illegally.
Reports said her "biting dissent" conflicted with the reasoned conclusion by the majority that lifted the special protections Biden granted to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela.
"I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly misjudges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families' pleas for the stability our Government has promised them," she claimed.
"Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent." She was joined by fellow extremists Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in the dissent.
Of course, such cases would not be coming before the Supreme Court on an emergency basis had not the previous administration created the extraordinary circumstances that are being challenged. And perhaps such emergency rulings might not be as many were not lower courts less filled with leftists and activists.
According to the Daily Caller New Foundation, the judges let Trump move ahead with ending special protected status for the Venezuelans.
Edward Chen, a judge appointed by Obama, ruled last month the Department of Homeland Security's termination of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan nationals violated the law.
It was in May when the high court lifted another lower court decision that prevented the DHS from removing TPS from Venezuelan migrants.
"So long as the district court's order is in effect, the Secretary must permit over 300,000 Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so even temporarily is 'contrary to the national interest,'" the Trump administration wrote in its September application.
A commentary at the Gateway Pundijt said, "Jackson fumed in her dissent."
The report said the ruling means some of those losing TPS ultimately could be deported.