This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'Performance' will be moved indoors with attendance limited to adults
A federal appeals court has decided to let the city of Naples, Florida, protect children from obscene images from a drag show that had been scheduled to be in public view, within sight of their park playground.
That's according to Liberty Counsel, which has been fighting on behalf of children who in past years had been protected from the offensive and inappropriate imagery by the city's requirement that the show be indoors.
It was the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that granted an appeal by Naples to allow it again to impose the requirement that the show be behind closed doors.
The decision suspends a lower court's ruling that blocked the city's requirement that the show be indoors.
The Naples Pride organization had claimed a First Amendment right to put on its display in Cambier Park, just 100 feet form a children's playground.
The lower court agreed with the activists, but the appeals court, 2-1, said such limits did not "disturb" the First Amendment rights of the organization.
Since the restrictions did not target the expressive views of Naples Pride, but rather safety concerns for residents and visitors, the appeals court determined the lower court "abused its discretion" and removed the injunction, the report said.
The court also noted the same restrictions had been in place for 2023 and 2024 "without substantial injury to the First Amendment rights."
According to the ruling, "In a limited public forum, the city's 'restrictions on speech must not discriminate against speech on the basis of viewpoint and must be reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum.' Here … the two permit conditions were not added based on Naples Pride's viewpoint. And they were reasonable in light of the special event."
Just weeks ago the city council voted to move "the traditionally lewd and indecent drag show indoors away from Cambier Park that is frequented by parents and their children," Liberty Counsel reported.
It was John Steele, a judge, who appeared to believe "the Naples Pride characterization that its drag show is 'family friendly.'"
However, evidence presented to the court contained photographic documentation from the 2022 outdoor show held just 100 feet from the children's playground.
"These images depict male performers in obscene drag performing lewd poses and simulating sexual acts that are unsuitable for minors. The drag performers also invited children to place money in their waist bands like strippers in a bar as the men shook their over-stuffed brazier tops and 'twerked' their fish net covered hind ends mimicking sexual activities no child should ever see," Liberty Counsel said.
President Donald Trump has experienced a string of victories at the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court at the same time federal judges across the nation seem to be working overtime to hamstring his policies at every turn.
According to USA Today, the three liberal justices on the high court are concerned that Trump is getting preferential treatment by the conservative majority of justices, especially Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Jackson warned that she believes the high court is sending a "troubling message" by siding with the president as much as it has in recent months.
She also believes the conservative justices are "undercutting" federal judges across the nation by overruling the decisions -- the decisions that just happen to overwhelmingly go against the president and his administration.
In a recent statement, Brown Jackson explained why she believes the high court is doing damage to itself with its favorable decisions for the Trump administration.
“It is particularly startling to think that grants of relief in these circumstances might be (unintentionally) conveying not only preferential treatment for the Government but also a willingness to undercut both our lower court colleagues’ well-reasoned interim judgments and the well-established constraints of law that they are in the process of enforcing,” she wrote.
The statement came in a dissent from a recent case involving former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk.
USA Today noted:
Jackson was dissenting from the conservative majority’s decision to give Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency complete access to the data of millions of Americans kept by the U.S. Social Security Administration.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined in the dissent with Brown Jackson, writing, "this Court dons its emergency responder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them."
Brown Jackson also wrote a similar complaint after a May decision that sided with the Trump administration.
That decision came down on May 30, which said that "the administration can revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans living in the United States."
Brown Jackson held nothing back in her dissent, claiming the high court "plainly botched" the decision.
Clearly, Brown Jackson and Sotomayor are not happy with being unable to join their federal counterparts in stopping Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump is enjoying the fruits of his three Supreme Court picks.
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court dealt a massive blow to efforts to protect Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, marking a massive victory for Justice Clarence Thomas.
The unanimous Supreme Court decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services knocked down DEI initiatives, pointing out that group discrimination is both "anything but academic" and fundamentally unconstitutional.
The decision marks an ideological victory for Justice Thomas, who has been leading the charge against leftist ideas that utilize oppression olympics to raise up minority groups over qualified individuals in hiring.
In fact, it was the court's most liberal member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who sounded like a student of Thoma, saying the "law’s focus on individuals rather than groups [is] anything but academic. By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’—without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone."
The Supreme Court has been laying waste to decades of leftist work in academia, pushing repulsive DEI initiatives that discriminate based on group membership.
Justice Thomas issued a concurring opinion alongside the court, adding that the "background circumstances" rule at question in the case was "plainly at odds with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection."
Furthermore, Justice Thomas made it clear that the Ames decision is directly aimed at DEI programs, striking a fatal blow to leftist hopes of playing games and preserving DEI programs with minor legalistic changes.
Justice Thomas wrote that, "American employers have long been ‘obsessed’ with ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives and affirmative action plans. Initiatives of this kind have often led to overt discrimination against those perceived to be in the majority."
This decision ends decades of leftist work to create systems that discriminate against the majority, or in other words, to discriminate against White people.
It's poetic that years of critical race theory are being burned down by one of the most accomplished Black Americans in history. Justice Thomas is an intellectual heavyweight who is often pointed to as the gold standard of constitutional thinking.
Justice Thomas has, in many ways, taken up the mantle left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. His hard-hitting judicial insights have been powerful enough even to sway the leftists who sit on the Supreme Court.
The future of DEI in America is looking especially grim as the Supreme Court continues to issue decisions that chop down the core legal principles that have long enabled the racist idea of judging individuals as members of social groups instead of simply as individuals.
Furthermore, the Ames decision is one of the first major decisions that singles out the issue of "reverse discrimination" against White Americans, who have been demonized by leftist thinking and policymaking.
As long as the Supreme Court has a majority panel that is inclined to uphold the core principles of the Constitution, there is no room for radical leftist theories that are modern reinterprations of racist ideas.
A recent appellate court decision sanctioned President Donald Trump's authority to exclude the Associated Press from accessing the Oval Office, reversing a lower court's decision granting equal access to AP as other media organizations, according to The Washington Times.
The judgment simultaneously restricts the White House from limiting AP's access to other areas, like the East Room.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a 2-1 verdict allowing this presidential discretion concerning Oval Office access.
Historically, the Oval Office has been a bastion of monumental decisions and crucial meetings, sometimes with media present upon the president's invitation.
The court's majority emphasized that this significant space is distinct from other public forums, giving the president control over its access.
Judge Naomi Rao articulated that although newsgathering enjoys some First Amendment protection, it does not qualify as a communicative act.
This case arose from the White House excluding AP for not using the "Gulf of America" terminology, subsequently relegating their press access.
AP reporters, however, maintain equitable chances to participate in Oval Office events alongside other major outlets.
Judge Cornelia Pillard disagreed with the majority ruling, suggesting that exclusion based on a private entity’s views outside the forum is unprecedented.
Additionally, the ruling highlighted that reporting—referred to as newsgathering—has stringent limitations under the First Amendment.
Aaron Terr, a critic, expressed concern over this decision, viewing it as viewpoint discrimination against disliked media.
Terr further remarked that the conclusion treating newsgathering as a non-communicative activity is perplexing to many.
Despite this decision, the White House cannot impede AP's access to other areas such as the East Room.
This suggests a nuanced distinction by the court, segregating spaces by their level of presidential control. The decision outlines a specific privilege spectrum regarding media access within the White House.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Judge's activism 'subjects the Executive Branch to judicial micromanagement'
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to move forward with plans to slash employees, cut programs and eliminate responsibilities at the U.S. Department of Education.
The administration has argued for an end to the department and for returning responsibilities to state education agencies as well as local schools and districts.
It argues that the federal bureaucracy is just a burden on education and should be moved out of the way.
A judge in a district court, the entry level for the federal court system, insisted that the government efficiency agenda be halted and hundreds and hundreds of workers be put back on payrolls.
"Each day this preliminary injunction remains in effect subjects the Executive Branch to judicial micromanagement of its day-to-day operations," explained Solicitor General D. John Sauer.
When Trump announced plans to eliminate what he considered an unneeded and wasteful federal bureaucracy, several Democrat-led states, school districts and teachers' unions sued.
While the administration has explained it will need congressional action to completely close the agency down, it argues it is working lawfully to reduce staff and transfer functions.
A report at the Washington Examiner said the administration now is asking the high court for permission to go ahead with layoffs.
"In this case, the district court is attempting to prevent the department from restructuring its workforce, despite lacking jurisdiction several times over. Intervention is again warranted," Sauer told the court.
It was a judge in Massachusetts who said, when Trump sought to reduce the workforce there by some 1,400 jobs, that he would take over that decision-making from the executive branch.
"Sauer argued to the high court that restoring the jobs of the nearly 1,400 people the Trump administration laid off would inflict 'irreparable harm' on the administration, 'insofar as it requires the government to pay salaries it cannot possibly recoup,'" the report said. "He also disputed the claim by the Democratic states suing to block the executive order that the layoffs include people necessary for the department to function as congressionally mandated."
"That injunction effectively appoints the district court to a Cabinet role and bars the Executive Branch from terminating anyone, even though respondents conceded that some other RIFs would plainly be proper," Sauer explained.
A recent court ruling has resulted in a directive for the Trump administration regarding AmeriCorps following a lawsuit involving 24 states and the District of Columbia.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman's decision mandates the reinstatement of funding and employment opportunities, highlighting that the Trump administration likely circumvented federal procedures by not issuing the proper notifications prior to executing significant budget reductions and staff terminations at AmeriCorps, as Fox News reports.
The legal dispute originated from actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), under the Trump administration, which included placing a large portion of AmeriCorps staff on leave and announcing substantial funding cuts. AmeriCorps, valued for its service-driven mission, was set to lose approximately $400 million in grants, drastically impacting its operations.
In response to these cuts, the states and D.C. filed a lawsuit arguing that the rapid reduction in funds and personnel was not only detrimental but also lacked legal authority. Their position was bolstered by claims that the cuts could inflict irreparable harm on communities reliant on AmeriCorps's service programs.
Judge Boardman's preliminary injunction does not ensure that the jobs will remain indefinitely. However, it does require that any future reductions must comply with appropriate procedures, namely, providing adequate notice to those affected.
This ruling applies exclusively to the states that participated in the lawsuit, reflecting the specific legal standing and grievances put forward in the case.
New York Attorney General Letitia James expressed her support for the judgment, emphasizing the critical contributions of AmeriCorps members in community welfare. "Over 200,000 AmeriCorps staff and volunteers work hard every day to care for our communities," she stated, recognizing the importance of their ongoing efforts.
AmeriCorps, originally established during the Clinton era, plays a crucial role in various community support activities, including responding to natural disasters and aiding vulnerable populations such as seniors and veterans. The program's budget, which was cut from about $1 billion, supports a wide array of community service initiatives.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro also voiced approval of the decision, noting it would assist significantly in community service areas such as disaster response and environmental maintenance.
With this judicial order, many of those who were previously placed on leave are expected to return to their roles, ensuring continuity of service in the affected states. The implications of Judge Boardman's ruling are substantial, underscoring the judiciary's role in balancing governmental efficiency objectives with statutory compliance and community welfare.
Judge Boardman remarked that any potential harm to the defendants was minor compared to the damages inflicted on the states and AmeriCorps programs. This statement highlights the perceived mismatch in the scale of impact on government operations versus community services.
Despite the temporary nature of the injunction, the ruling stands as a notable example of the judiciary's intervention in federal administrative actions, particularly those with immediate detrimental impacts on public programs.
This case emphasizes the necessity for federal administrations to adhere to established procedures before enacting significant policy changes, especially those with widespread social and economic consequences. Future administrations may be more cautious about how they implement cuts to federally supported programs.
In light of the recent ruling, the conversation around administrative transparency, procedural due diligence, and states' rights within federal governance is expected to gain further traction. This legal development represents a pivotal moment not only for AmeriCorps but also for the broader discourse on federal administration policies.
As communities across the states that joined the lawsuit anticipate a reinstatement of services, the broader implications of this courtroom victory continue to unfold, potentially setting a precedent for similar cases in the future.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with a Catholic charity that was denied a tax exemption after the state of Wisconsin arbitrarily decided the group is "secular in nature" and therefore not eligible.
The ruling is a significant victory for Catholic Charities Bureau, which has spent years waging a legal battle to vindicate its religious rights.
Wisconsin allows groups that operate "primarily for a religious purpose" to obtain an exemption from state unemployment taxes. The Catholic Charities Bureau, which is the charitable arm of the local Catholic diocese in Superior, Wisconsin, sought the benefit in 2016 but was denied.
The Supreme Court's 9-0 ruling declared Wisconsin's denial of tax-exempt status "textbook denominational discrimination" that violates the First Amendment's requirement of religious neutrality.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court had previously ruled that Catholic Charities is not a religious group because it does not try to convert people and does not limit its services to Catholics only.
As the court put it, Catholic Charities makes no "attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith nor supply any religious materials to program participants or employees.”
The Catholic Church distinguishes between forcible conversion or proselytism, which it discourages, and evangelization - that is, attracting people to the faith through acts of love.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Catholic Charities, argued that "showing Christ's love" for the poor and hungry is an innately religious activity.
By ruling the group "secular in nature," the Wisconsin Supreme Court improperly discriminated on the basis of theology, the Supreme Court held unanimously. The ruling was an easy one for the justices to make, Sonia Sotomayor wrote.
“There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,” Sotomayor wrote for the court.
“When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny,” she continued.
Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty, celebrated the Supreme Court for rejecting the "ludicrous" claim that a Catholic charity is not religious in nature.
"This was a ludicrous claim, and the Court has rightly reversed. The Court has unanimously affirmed that the government cannot discriminate against our ministries simply because they do not conform to the government’s narrow idea of religion. I am grateful the Court has recognized that basic principle here," he said.
Eric Rassbach, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said, "It was always absurd to claim that Catholic Charities wasn’t religious because it helps everyone, no matter their religion...The Court resoundingly reaffirmed a fundamental truth of our constitutional order: the First Amendment protects all religious beliefs, not just those the government favors.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (Ky.) subpoenaed President Biden's longtime doctor this week, as a delayed reckoning with the cover-up of the former president's cognitive decline continues.
The subpoena comes after lawyers for physician Kevin O'Connor refused a request to sit for a transcribed interview about "the circumstances surrounding your assessment in February 2024 that former President Biden was ‘a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency."
The doctor has had a cozy relationship with the Biden family and was even involved with one of their business ventures, raising doubts about his credibility.
"Among other subjects, the Committee expressed its interest in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden’s physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President," Comer wrote.
The subpoena requires O'Connor to appear before the House Oversight Committee on June 27.
"In lieu of full compliance, your counsel suggest a set of written interrogatories that would afford them as well as an unnamed medical ethics expert the ability to 'closely evaluate' your answers. This is not acceptable and will not satisfy the Committee’s legitimate oversight and legislative needs," Comer wrote.
Comer rebutted O'Connor's excuses for not appearing before Congress, which included "physician-patient privilege" and a section of law that O'Connor quoted "selectively."
"The plain language of this Section is clear: it only limits a physician’s ability to disclose confidential patient information in ‘Federal courts in the District of Columbia and District of Columbia courts,'” the letter explained. “The D.C. Court of Appeals has affirmed this interpretation, stating that the law creates ‘an evidentiary privilege only, and extends no further than the courtroom door.’ Congress is not a court; this Section therefore in no way precludes you from appearing and testifying your role as Physician to former President Biden.”
O'Connor has been Biden's doctor since 2009, when the former president was, compared to today, cognitively sharp. The doctor's failure to notice a decline in Biden's condition is suspicious, to say the least.
As recently as February 2024, O'Connor certified that Biden was fit for duty, despite never giving him a cognitive test. Months later, as Biden faced pressure to step aside following a disastrous debate, O'Connor downplayed multiple visits that Biden received from a Parkinson's specialist.
“Seeing patients at the White House is something that Dr. Cannard has been doing for a dozen years,” O’Connor wrote in a letter at the time. “Dr. Cannard was chosen for this responsibility not because he is a movement disorder specialist, but because he is a highly trained and highly regarded neurologist here at Walter Reed and across the Military Health System, with a very wide expertise which makes him flexible to see a variety of patients and problems.”
After Biden's re-election campaign imploded last summer, O'Connor told a New York Post reporter that Biden's condition was "excellent" and insisted that a cognitive test was not necessary because Biden showed up to work "every day."
O'Connor is just one member of Biden's circle who is facing scrutiny for the scandalous cover-up, with former first lady Jill Biden facing accusations of "elder abuse."
A source told the New York Post that Congress is also seeking testimony from former press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who repeatedly vouched for Biden's cognitive fitness and stonewalled questions about his treatment.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A lawyer for the late Jeffrey Epstein, who already had served time for sex offense convictions and was awaiting the prosecution of more when he died, apparently by suicide, in a New York jail, has confirmed that the notorious pedophile had nothing on President Donald Trump.
That issue was raised during a war of words between Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and Trump.
The two had worked together for months on the Department of Government Efficiency, trying to eliminate criminal conduct, fraud, waste and corruption from federal spending, eventually totaling about $170 billion in cuts.
But the two found themselves as odds when the Trump agenda was assembled into a bill in Congress. Musk wanted much more spending cuts than what the plan provided, while Trump was working with a fractious Congress where even his own party had divisions.
As part of the name-calling and back-and-forth bashing between the two, Musk dropped "the really big bomb," claiming Trump was in the "Epstein files."
Lawyer David Schoen went to social media to deny it.
He wrote, "I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein's defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died. He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!"
Musk had claimed otherwise, although he provided no evidence for his comment:
The Trump administration is in the process of going through the evidence involving Epstein now, and has announced its intention to make much of the documentation about the case public.
While the affirmation is from just one "authoritative" source, the Western Journal speculated that had there been evidence incriminating Trump, Democrats would have had it in the headlines years ago.
Daily Wire Host Matt Walsh said, "It is totally inconceivable that there would be something incriminating about Trump in the Epstein files and yet the Democrats kept that information to themselves for all these years."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
First it was a cake baker, then a web designer and now it's a counselor
For the third time in just a handful of years, Colorado is at the U.S. Supreme Court over its demands that it control the faith, beliefs and speech of people in its state.
Specifically, people who do business. First it was a cake baker, then a web designer and now it's a counselor.
In the newest case, which is just developing at the high court, the state is demanding that Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor, share only the state-approved faith messages regarding the LGBT agenda.
According to a report from ADF, which is representing Chiles, "Many of Chiles' clients come to her because they share her Christian faith. These clients believe their lives will be more fulfilling if they grow comfortable with their bodies rather than pursuing a path of harmful drugs or surgeries. Yet Colorado law censors Chiles from speaking words her clients want to hear and insists that counselors can only help young people by encouraging them to identify inconsistent with their sex."
It's the state's adopted beliefs in the LGTB ideologies that are at issue.
"The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors," Jim Campbell, a lawyer for the ADF, said. "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."
Colorado officials have made it illegal to encourage, through counseling, that people, including young people, abandon the LGBT ideology and work to establish a comfort level being the sex they were born.
"We are eager to defend Kaley's First Amendment rights and ensure that government officials don't impose their ideology on private conversations between counselors and clients," Campbell said.
The ADF's noted, "Colorado's law violates Chiles' freedom of speech by prohibiting licensed counselors 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 law threatens severe penalties, including suspension and even revocation of the counselor's license."
The ADF's opening brief in the case confirms "how the law only prohibits counseling conversations in one direction," stating, "When counseling young people with gender dysphoria, Colorado allows Chiles to speak if she helps them embrace a transgender identity. But if those clients choose to align their sense of identity with their sex by growing comfortable with their bodies, Chiles must remain silent or risk losing her license, her livelihood, and the career she loves."
The brief asks the Supreme Court to protect free speech for counselors.
"Counseling is vital speech that helps young people better understand themselves, their desires, their actions, and their identity. Colorado interjects itself into those conversations, silences views it dislikes, and tries to control what those kids believe about themselves and who they can become."
It was only weeks ago the high court agreed to review the case.
Twice before it has intervened in Colorado's attempts to dictate beliefs and ideologies.
It first tried to force a baker, Jack Phillips at Masterpiece Cakeshop, to express a pro-LGBT message that violated his religious faith. The high court ended up scolding the state for its "hostility" to Christianity, and the state ended up being sued by Phillips for its unconstitutional actions.
Colorado, led by homosexual Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat-majority legislature and an all-Democrat state Supreme Court, which is so leftist it blatantly tried to interfere with the 2024 presidential election by banning President Donald Trump from the ballot (it was overturned), tried the same scheme against a web designer, at 303 Creative, and took a major loss, again, from the Supreme Court.
It was the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, an often overturned panel, that affirmed the Colorado scheme to censor Christian perspectives.