In The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton famously promised that the federal judiciary would have "neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment." The climate lawfare movement has spent the better part of a decade trying to prove Hamilton wrong.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, in which Boulder seeks to use Colorado public nuisance law to make two energy companies pay for the effects of global climate change.

The case is the culmination of a long campaign.

SUPREME COURT BEGINS NEW TERM WITH HIGH-PROFILE LOOK AT CLEAN AIR AND FEDERAL AUTHORITY

A small, well-funded network of climate activists, convinced that drastic action is needed to save the planet and frustrated that their fellow citizens have not voted to dismantle the fossil-fuel industry, have turned to state and local courts after the Supreme Court unanimously shut down federal climate-nuisance suits in 2011’s American Electric Power v. Connecticut. Their strategy rests on a single premise: When the front door of democracy is closed, try the courthouse back door.

But thanks to documents released September 30 by the House Judiciary Committee, we no longer have to guess. One of the movement’s architects put the strategy in writing.

CLIMATE SEMINARS FOR JUDGES FACE FUNDING TRAIL PROBE AMID FEARS OF OUTSIDE INFLUENCE ON COURTS

"It seemed to me that without legislative or executive action to address the climate problem, real government action might still be derived from court decisions," Paul Hanle wrote in a May 2022 email. Hanle founded the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project, which has put at least 140 federal judges through its climate "education" seminars. In the same email, he laid out CJP’s strategy to target "key judges" with seminars, hoping to "make a great difference in the final outcome of cases."

The crown jewel was the judges’ own science manual. In December 2022, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine invited Michael Burger to write the climate chapter of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, the federal judiciary’s go-to science guide. Burger runs Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and is of counsel at Sher Edling, a firm representing many of the cities and counties suing oil companies. The Federal Judicial Center balked, citing his litigation work.

CHINA-LINKED GREEN GROUP TRAINING US JUDGES DRAWS FRESH HEAT AS FOREIGN TIES FUEL PRESSURE AT HOME

The next day, Burger told his Sabin Center colleagues, the chapter’s eventual named authors, that he’d "be happy to contribute behind the scenes." Within weeks, one of them was circulating a draft with "Mike’s edits" and revising the legal section in response to his comments. Soon after the manual was published, the FJC withdrew the climate chapter. The National Academies finally followed suit in August.

Why all the stealth? Because climate plaintiffs have a causation problem they cannot solve in the open.

SUPREME COURT CAN RESTORE SANITY AND STOP THE LEFT’S RADICAL CLIMATE AGENDA

At the Suncor Energy oral argument, Justice Elena Kagan told the oil companies’ lawyer, "Well, you sound like you have a very good causation argument." She meant it as a brush-off; she immediately questioned why causation should matter for preemption.

But Kagan is right: No climate plaintiff has a good causation argument. Greenhouse gases mix globally, and about 90 percent of emissions occur outside the United States. Tying a drought in Boulder to any particular company’s barrels of oil is simply not possible.

ECO-WARRIORS WANT TO TURN UP THE HEAT ON YOUR WALLET TO FUND THEIR CLIMATE AGENDA

That is why the climate lawfare movement needs judges to swallow "extreme event attribution." Boulder’s trial court has already shown what the endgame looks like, declaring, "in a multiple contributor tort case, there is no need to tie specific injuries to the actions of defendants." If you can’t meet the standard, lower it.

This is precisely what the Constitution’s structure exists to prevent: a small minority weaponizing federalism to impose its policy preferences on the entire nation. One county cannot regulate the world. If Boulder prevails, the companies’ lawyer warned, some 90,000 municipalities could make national energy policy through jury awards. Pressed by Justice Clarence Thomas at oral argument, Boulder’s lawyer conceded that "nothing in our theory" prevents suing retailers too.

WAVE OF OVERLOOKED 'LEFT-WING' LAWSUITS COULD COME WITH AN UNEXPECTED PRICE TAG FOR AMERICANS

And it won’t stop with oil companies. The Climate Judiciary Project’s own curriculum for judges shows where this is headed. One module touts "source attribution" studies tracing nearly two-thirds of all carbon dioxide emitted since the 1750s to 90 fossil-fuel and cement producers. Then it turns to the dinner table: "Though its members have not yet been named as defendants in climate change lawsuits, the heavily concentrated industrial animal agriculture industry also has been subjected to source attribution analysis." Note the word "yet."

The module is candid about the point of the exercise. These studies take an alleged problem that could be attributed to "several billion past and present human individuals" and reduce it "to one driven by a few dozen companies," which makes climate change "appear to be more amenable to traditional tort law adjudication." This is regulation by litigation, pure and simple. Punish the companies that supply Americans’ fuel, food and building materials, and every family pays the bill at the pump and the grocery store. 

Chief Justice John Roberts cut to the heart of the matter: "Isn’t your suit an attempt to evade those decisions?" He meant the Court’s long line of cases treating interstate air pollution as a matter of federal law, which Justice Brett Kavanaugh had called "a wall of precedent." Kavanaugh then read aloud from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinion in AEP: Federal judges "lack the scientific, economic, and technological resources" to set emissions policy. If that is true of federal judges, Kavanaugh asked, doesn’t it apply to "a six-person state jury in Boulder?"

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Take it from Ginsburg herself. Greenhouse-gas regulation, she wrote, "cannot be prescribed in a vacuum." It demands weighing environmental benefits against "our Nation’s energy needs and the possibility of economic disruption."

The climate lawfare complex lost at the ballot box. It lost in AEP. So its backers went behind the scenes—into judicial seminars and judges’ own science manual. Enough already. The Supreme Court should shut the courthouse door for good.

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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone public dissenter in a Thursday decision allowing New Hampshire to block the use of student ID cards in the upcoming midterm elections.

Other justices on the court cited the longstanding precedent "that lower federal courts should ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election," and said that lower courts failed to argue that the specific case in New Hampshire warranted an exception to the tradition. Jackson, however, argued the proximity to an election should not get in the way of properly applying the law.

"I respectfully dissent because — even, and perhaps especially, when an election is looming — I would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes," she wrote.

FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS INDIANA BAN ON STUDENT ID FOR VOTING

The underlying dispute stems from a law signed in April that went into effect in June, striking student ID cards from the list of forms of identification that election officials can accept when an individual requests a ballot. A voting rights group sued New Hampshire on the grounds that the law illegally discriminated against young voters by making it more difficult for them to vote.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan then issued guidance saying that student IDs could not be used to establish voter identity, even as supporting evidence under the state's alternative verification procedures. A district judge blocked that portion of the guidance, arguing that it went beyond the scope of the law itself, which only removed student IDs from the list of expressly accepted forms of identification.

Among the supporters of the guidance was the Republican National Committee.

DEMS HAND GOP FRESH MIDTERM WEAPON BY OPPOSING WIDELY USED VOTER ID

While Jackson was the lone public dissenter, it is possible that other justices dissented as well, but opted not to be named on the court order. During her roughly four years on the Supreme Court, Jackson has broken from the rest of her colleagues in areas such as campaign finance, immigration and congressional map litigation.

In 2023, she was the lone dissenter in an 8-1 ruling allowing a concrete company to sue striking union workers. She also stood alone in a May 2026 decision involving federal prisoners seeking to challenge their convictions through compassionate release.

TRUMP SCORES SUPREME COURT WIN IN ELECTION INTEGRITY FIGHT AS STATES GAIN NEW VOTER ROLL TOOL

New Hampshire is holding a handful of close races on Election Day, putting some weight behind the court’s decision. Fox News’ power rankings rate the state’s Senate race as leans Democratic, meaning that liberals have a slight advantage in a race that could decide control of Congress. The state’s governor’s race, meanwhile, is rated as likely going to the GOP.

College students typically favor the Democratic Party, though it is unclear how many voters will be affected by the court ruling, as students who previously relied on their student IDs will now need another accepted form of identification.

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Some Democrats, however, believe allowing voters to use student IDs would be a good thing. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, for instance, has pushed for such a thing in his state.

Several NC legal aid organizations say the removal of their court-mandated funding was an unconstitutional move.

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A man who had charges against him dropped today - after he had been accused of sexually assaulting a girl in a case that led to three days of rioting in Dublin last year - has been rearrested.

Hadi Alodid will stand trial next year

The Limassol permanent criminal court found four men guilty of the premeditated murder of Thanasis Kalogeropoulos on Friday, a verdict that carries a mandatory life sentence.

The court concluded that the guilt of all four was proven “beyond all reasonable doubt” and that the killing was the result of pre-planning.

The men, aged between 23 and 46, faced 11 charges between them, with the court also finding them guilty of the remaining counts, which included conspiracy to commit murder, possession, transport and use of firearms, as well as arson.

The 24-year-old, who also faced a charge of aiding and abetting murder, was cleared of that count.

Kalogeropoulos, 55, was killed on October 30, 2023, in a car park next to a beach restaurant on Amathus Avenue in Limassol, on his way to a morning swim; a post-mortem found he had been shot ten times.

Police said he was shot at close range from a vehicle by two people, one using a pistol and the other a Kalashnikov.

The attackers then set fire to their getaway vehicle and left on a motorcycle.

Kalogeropoulos was “well known to authorities” for his previous involvement in organised crime.

Police had alleged that the 24-year-old was the mastermind of the plot and that another defendant was one of the two gunmen.

They said the oldest defendant owned the house where the killing was planned and the youngest was the getaway driver.

The defendants will now be sentenced, with premeditated murder carrying a mandatory life term under Cypriot law.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed New Hampshire officials to reject student IDs as a valid form of identification when voters cast their ballots in next month's midterm elections.

A lower court judge previously found that state officials had improperly gone further than a new law restricting the use of student IDs to obtain a ballot, ruling that officials still had to consider student IDs alongside other evidence when voters lacked other means of verifying their identity.

But the Supreme Court took issue with the judge intervening this close to the elections.

ARIZONA VOTER LAW FIGHT REACHES SCOTUS AS ELECTION GROUPS WARN ‘ABSURD’ CONSEQUENCE COULD ENSUE

The high court has said orders handed down too close to an election can cause voter confusion, an idea known as the Purcell Principle. The court cited the recent legal back-and-forth over Missouri’s redistricting maps.

"Here, the District Court did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle," the majority wrote in its opinion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying the rule did not apply since the lower court judge was helping ensure the public received accurate information.

JACKSON RIPS INTO SUPREME COURT COLLEAGUES' 'SERIOUS LEGAL ERROR' ON TRUMP MAIL-IN VOTING ORDER

"When a federal court determines that material misrepresentations are being made about a State’s election rules, an injunction to prohibit that conduct does not contribute to public confusion, it prevents that very problem," Jackson wrote. "I would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes," she wrote.

This comes after Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed House Bill 323 into law in April, removing student IDs from the list of identification expressly considered valid for obtaining a ballot. The law took effect June 2. After the law went into effect, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan issued guidance to election officials about the change, and multiple trainings were held.

"New Hampshire has a responsibility to protect the integrity of its elections and ensure that election laws are applied as written," New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella, a Republican, said in a statement.

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"The Supreme Court’s decision is an important victory for our efforts to defend those laws and prevent last-minute court orders from creating uncertainty for voters and election officials. We will continue to defend New Hampshire’s election laws and the safeguards they provide," he continued.

The Supreme Court's decision was not a final ruling on the merits of the case, and the underlying litigation over the law remains ongoing.

Former athlete had been told not to drive because of epilepsy

Two Minnesota federal judges who took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown to the New York Times are now fighting the administration’s efforts to disqualify them from cases involving immigration enforcement.

One of those judges, Patrick Schiltz, is overseeing the Justice Department’s effort to strip U. S. citizenship from Salah Osman Ahmed, a Somali-born man who pleaded guilty in 2009 to providing material support to terrorists after joining al- Shabaab. The other, John Tunheim, is presiding over the prosecution of a South African national accused of falsely claiming U. S. citizenship and illegally voting in the 2024 election. The Justice Department filed separate motions asking Schiltz and Tunheim to recuse themselves, arguing that their participation in the New York Times report criticizing President Donald Trump's Operation Metro Surge has raised questions about whether they can fairly preside over the cases.

"Impartiality is imperative to ensuring public trust in our Nation’s judiciary," the Justice Department said in a statement posted to X this week. "Judge Schiltz’s and Judge Tunheim’s on-the-record participation in a recent highly partisan New York Times Article, along with Judge Schiltz’s subsequent public comments, unquestionably calls into doubt whether they can be impartial in these cases."

OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE AT CENTER OF TRUMP'S ANTI-WEAPONIZATION FUND CASE HIT WITH MISCONDUCT CLAIM

The Justice Department's formal recusal demand follows reporting by Fox News Digital last month detailing unusual behind-the-scenes coordination among Minnesota's federal bench as judges confronted a massive influx of immigration cases stemming from the administration's enforcement operation. The report came after Schiltz and Tunheim were among seven Minnesota federal judges who spoke with the Times in September about Operation Metro Surge. Schiltz sat for a roughly 90- minute interview during which he described the administration's handling of the operation as having created a "grave threat to the rule of law," while Tunheim suggested to the Times that agents carrying out the administration's immigration crackdown were not primarily apprehending dangerous criminals.

DOJ had already raised the prospect that judges who publicly discussed the administration's immigration cases might need to step aside when the Times report was released in September. Last month, DOJ filed a judicial misconduct complaint against Schiltz, Tunheim and other Minnesota judges who participated in the Times report, accusing them of violating judicial ethics rules and asking the Eighth Circuit to investigate. Attorney General Todd Blanche said their conduct had "undermined public confidence in an impartial judiciary in Minnesota."

"It is remarkable that sitting federal judges are giving on-the-record interviews attacking this Administration's policies rather than ruling from the bench," a Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital in September. "Judges who have made public comments on pending or related matters should consider whether recusal is warranted going forward."

'WORST OF THE WORST' JUDGES ARE SABOTAGING TRUMP'S IMMIGRATION AGENDA, TOP DHS OFFICIAL SAYS

The Times report in question revealed that Schiltz, Tunheim and the other Minnesota judges handling the flood of Operation Metro Surge cases regularly met, communicated through running email threads and used an informal spreadsheet created by court clerks to identify judges to consult about recurring legal questions. Chief Judge Eric Tostrud previously told Fox News Digital that the judges nevertheless independently decided every case assigned to them.

"The bottom line is that each of us made an independent decision with respect to the merits of each and every petition we were assigned," Tostrud said at the time.

The Justice Department, however, has accused Schiltz and the other judges of "publicly" taking sides in the ongoing battle over Trump's deportation agenda.

"A judge who has publicly taken sides on the political issue of immigration enforcement cannot then preside over a case concerning one of the Justice Department’s key immigration initiatives: pursuing the largest denaturalization effort in Department history to restore trust and integrity in U.S. citizenship," Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward wrote.

Schiltz declined to comment on the Justice Department's new effort to disqualify him when reached by Fox News Digital this week. But when Fox News Digital asked him about the possibility of recusal in September, Schiltz argued there was no basis for him to step aside — and pointed to the fact that DOJ had not asked him to do so.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S IMMIGRATION PUSH FUELS ICE'S BIGGEST ARREST MONTH IN AGENCY HISTORY

"I have seen suggestions from the Administration that I might have to recuse in immigration cases, but no one has yet identified any basis for my recusal, which is presumably why the Justice Department has not asked me to recuse," Schiltz said at the time.

"Neither in the New York Times article nor anywhere else have I commented on the merits of a particular case," he continued. "Instead, I have spoken in defense of the rule of law, a component of which is compliance with court orders. That is not a cause for recusal."

Tunheim did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Charles "Cully" Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation who previously served as a federal prosecutor and military judge, told Fox News Digital that judges ordinarily avoid publicly commenting on matters that could intersect with cases before them.

"These judges did something extraordinarily imprudent, and that is to talk to any newspaper, much less the New York Times," Stimson said. "That was a big no-no."

STATE'S LARGEST MOSQUE LEADER’S DEPORTATION FIGHT TAKES DRAMATIC TURN AS TRUMP ADMIN SCORES MAJOR WIN

Asked what he would do if the New York Times interviews were the only facts at issue, Stimson said he would step aside.

"If we were to just go off of the New York Times interview ... I would recuse myself," Stimson said, noting the recusal would only be from the particular case at issue as opposed to all future cases adjudicating the same principles.

Stimson cautioned, however, that recusal motions put judges in the unusual position of effectively judging their own impartiality and said it would be inappropriate to predict how either motion should ultimately be resolved without the complete record.

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If either judge denies DOJ's request, Stimson said the government could seek review from the Eighth Circuit, where a three-judge panel would determine whether the government has met the legal standard for recusal.

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DOJ declined to comment further Thursday beyond its public statement. A DOJ spokesperson also did not answer Fox News Digital's question about whether the department would appeal if Schiltz or Tunheim denies the recusal motions.

On December 2, the Supreme Court will consider constitutional challenges to "assault weapon" bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, that cover widely owned rifles, including the AR-15. As the plaintiffs in those consolidated cases see it, such laws plainly violate the Second Amendment because they prohibit arms in common use for lawful purposes. In briefs filed on Wednesday, Connecticut and Cook County urge the justices to reject that test, saying a weapon's popularity is not dispositive. The relevant question, they say, is whether their rifle restrictions fit a historical tradition of banning "unusually dangerous weapons."

Cook County and Connecticut have the burden of showing that their laws are "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," the test established by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. On the face of it, that is a daunting challenge.

In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment protects the right to own "bearable arms" that are "in common use" for "lawful purposes like self-defense." That description indisputably encompasses "AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles," the firearms at issue in these cases. But Heller also recognized "the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons.'" Cook County and Connecticut argue that the rifles they have deemed intolerable fall into that category.

"There is a robust historical tradition of regulating unusually dangerous weapons that
compromise public safety," Cook County says. "Such regulations, which long
predate the founding, have included outright bans and other restrictions on exceptionally dangerous weapons like launcegays, trap guns, Bowie knives, and slung shots."

Cook County argues that its ordinance is "relevantly similar" to those historical restrictions because it targets "exceptionally lethal weapons that are disproportionate to the end of self-defense." AR-15s are "offensive weapons of war designed for maximum lethality and are not customarily used for self-defense," the brief says. "The purpose and operation of the ban is consistent with our Nation's historical tradition and accounts for the exceptional dangerousness of these technologically advanced weapons."

The ban is "an appropriate contemporary restriction implemented by the legislature in response to dramatic technological change and unprecedented societal concern," the brief says. "It is tailored to respond to the particular dangers presented in areas with mass casualty exposure and acute public safety risk."

Connecticut offers a similar argument. One problem with this defense is the premise that "assault weapon" bans focus on "exceptionally lethal weapons." As critics of such laws have been pointing out for decades, the features they target, such as folding stocks, pistol grips, and barrel shrouds, do not affect a rifle's basic operation. With or without them, a rifle fires the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity. And because AR-15s use intermediate-caliber ammunition, they are arguably less lethal than shotguns and many hunting rifles that are not classified as "assault weapons."

Cook County's emphasis on technological developments is also questionable. Constitutional guarantees establish principles that courts routinely apply to technologies that did not exist at the founding. Although the Framers did not have radio, television, or the internet, for example, the First Amendment nevertheless constrains government regulation of those media.

More specifically, Heller rejected the idea that modern weapons are not covered by the Second Amendment by recognizing a constitutional right to own semiautomatic pistols. The Supreme Court said "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." The Court confirmed that point in the 2016 case Caetano v. Massachusetts, which involved a state ban on stun guns.

Cook County also asserts that AR-15s are not suitable for self-defense, a claim that would be hotly contested by many owners of such rifles, who commonly report using them for that purpose. "Plaintiffs have shown that AR-15s are well-adapted for self-defense," U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan wrote in 2024, when he reluctantly concluded that New Jersey's AR-15 ban was inconsistent with Heller while expressing his dismay at that result. "Evidence has been presented to the Court that the build of the AR-15 makes it well-suited to self-defense because it is 'light weight, [has] very mild recoil, and [has] good ergonomics'; it is a weapon which is 'well suited to younger shooters, female shooters, and other shooters of smaller stature.'"

Sheridan added that "the AR-15's design features—including the effectiveness of its cartridge for self-defense use and its better continuity of fire when used with available magazines—make the AR-15 a good choice for self-defense." And he noted that "the AR-15 has been used recently in several, relatively high-profile self-defense events in Florida, Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma."

Cook County and Connecticut are also wrong in suggesting that self-defense is the only "lawful purpose" that matters. While Heller emphasized the use of handguns "in defense of hearth and home," it did not say that was the full extent of the Second Amendment right. To the contrary, the phrase "lawful purposes like self-defense" implies that the right extends to other uses, such as hunting, pest control, and target shooting. The decision explicitly mentioned hunting as a "reason Americans valued the ancient right."

The briefs are misleading in another way that may prove decisive. They conflate "dangerous and unusual" with "unusually dangerous," which is not the same thing.

During the 19th century, state legislators restricted (and sometimes banned) weapons such as Bowie knives, spears, sword canes, slungshots, and brass knuckles. But the historical evidence suggests those weapons were not targeted simply because they were "unusually dangerous." Legislators were also concerned about how the weapons were typically used.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who filed a brief supporting the challenges to the AR-15 bans, notes that the 19th-century laws targeted weapons associated with "duels, brawls, and other criminal activities." And in reviewing those laws, state courts distinguished between arms favored by criminals and arms commonly used for lawful purposes.

In 1871, for example, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that legislators could ban weapons that were "not usual" but could not ban "the usual arms of the citizen." The top courts of Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Michigan concurred that the right to arms encompassed weapons commonly owned by law-abiding people, including rifles.

AR-15s and similar rifles readily pass that common-use test. In January, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's trade association, reported that Americans own more than 32 million "modern sporting rifles," its preferred term for the models covered by "assault weapon" bans. Survey data suggest that somewhere between 16 million and 25 million Americans have owned AR-15-style rifles. Last year, a unanimous Supreme Court described the AR-15 as "the most popular rifle in the country."

According to Cook County and Connecticut, however, none of that matters. "Once it is established that a regulation pursues a legitimate public safety objective in a permissible manner, raw ownership numbers cannot immunize a firearm from regulation," Cook County says. It argues that opponents of its ordinance have misconstrued the significance of the common-use test and misunderstood how it interacts with Bruen.

"When the Second Amendment's plain text covers an individual's conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct," the Supreme Court said in Bruen. "To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual's conduct falls outside the Second Amendment's 'unqualified command.'"

The common-use question, Cook County argues, figures only in the first Bruen step: "the inquiry whether the weapon at issue is one 'the Second Amendment protects.'" But even if ownership of AR-15s is covered by "the Second Amendment's plain text," it says, that does not resolve the question of whether they can be banned, which depends on the historical analysis required by the second step of the Bruen test.

"This Court's decision in Bruen confirms that the Second Amendment's step-two inquiry does not insulate popularly owned firearms from regulation," the brief says. In
Bruen, it was "undisputed" that "handguns are weapons 'in common use' today for self-defense," including "outside the home." But "instead of being the end of this Court's inquiry, that observation was just the beginning." The decision also included an "extended analysis" of the historical laws that New York cited to justify its "proper cause" requirement for carry permits. "If lawful common use alone were enough to forbid regulation," Cook County argues, "there would have been no need to engage in that careful and prolonged analysis."

The question in Bruen was not whether the Second Amendment precludes "regulation." It was whether New York's specific approach, which required residents to demonstrate a "special need" before they were allowed to exercise the right to bear arms, was consistent with the historical tradition. That is why the Court considered (and rejected) the purported historical analogs that New York offered.

Cook County conflates requirements for carry permits, the issue in Bruen, with an outright ban on ownership, the policy it is defending. Connecticut likewise blurs the distinction between carry restrictions and complete prohibition.

"The Bowie knife was 'widely carried by Americans of all stripes,' including 'upstanding citizens and villains' alike," Connecticut's brief says. "The widespread use of Bowie knives and other weapons for lawful purposes did not prevent dozens of States from restricting those weapons." But those laws generally restricted or banned public carry. They rarely made it illegal to acquire or possess a Bowie knife, which is the approach that Connecticut and Cook County have taken with AR-15s.

That policy is hard to reconcile with Heller. I will quote Sheridan again, since his comments made it clear that he would have preferred to uphold New Jersey's AR-15 ban. Under Heller, he said, "a categorical ban on a class of weapons commonly used for self-defense is unlawful." Given "the Supreme Court's clear direction on this point," he concluded, New Jersey's law "is unconstitutional" as applied to "the Colt AR-15 for use for self-defense in the home."

Last July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit agreed and went further, extending that conclusion to "the full class of semi-automatic rifles" banned in New Jersey. "Together, Heller and Bruen teach that bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation's tradition of firearm regulation," Judge Arianna Freeman, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in the majority opinion. "That principle resolves our inquiry here."

To beat back the challenges to their laws, Connecticut and Cook County will have to persuade the justices that the 3rd Circuit's understanding of Heller and Bruen is wrong, meaning they are free to ban firearms in common use for lawful purposes. That seems like a tall order, and Cook County's position is especially puzzling. According to its brief, the fact that a weapon is covered by the Second Amendment does not mean Americans have a right to possess it. The more you think about that claim, the less sense it makes.

The post Defending Its AR-15 Ban, Cook County Urges SCOTUS To Ignore the Rifle's Popularity appeared first on Reason Magazine.

A man accused of murdering a pensioner in her home told her daughter that either her mother or he would have to leave the house due to constant arguing between them, a court heard.

A Biden-appointed federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security must halt certain investigations into suspected illegal voting, citing concerns over voter intimidation.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, the jurist in question, was born in Mexico and nominated to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in 2022. Before becoming a federal judge, Martínez-Olguín spent about six years at the American Civil Liberties Union, a progressive civil rights organization, where she worked on women's and immigrants' rights issues.

The activist groups suing DHS "demonstrate[d] that they are likely to succeed in their claim that Defendants have run afoul of the Voting Rights Act’s prohibition of intimidating voter assistance and mobilization," according to Martínez-Olguín.

DOJ OFFICIAL DEFENDS TRUMP'S NONCITIZEN VOTER PROBE ON '60 MINUTES,' ACCUSES SHOW OF EDITING OUT HER ANSWERS

The public’s "interests in safe elections, free from interference or intimidation, far exceed (the government’s) purported interest in combating unlawful voting by non-U.S. citizens," she added.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, maintained that noncitizen voting in federal elections is a crime and that DHS has statutory authority to investigate suspected violations. Martínez-Olguín did not find investigating noncitizen voting as itself unlawful, but instead argued that DHS’ methods likely violate the law as it used unreliable source data and sent armed agents to homes to conduct interviews, which could constitute intimidation.

STATE DEPARTMENT CONSIDERS SHARING PASSPORT RECORDS FOR VOTER CITIZENSHIP CHECKS

Lawyers representing the federal government conceded that some American citizens may have been looked at in connection with DHS’ investigations, but contended that in-person interviews were "expressly designed to resolve the discrepancies."

Noncitizen voting is rare, but cases of illegal voting have been documented. News broke earlier this year, for example, that New Jersey erroneously placed over 6,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls. The Justice Department announced charges against 16 individuals in September, including noncitizens accused of voting illegally in federal elections, and brought additional election-related charges in October.

NEW JERSEY REMOVES 6,600 PEOPLE FROM VOTER ROLLS WHO WERE ELIGIBLE TO CAST A BALLOT FOR 2024 ELECTION

Martínez-Olguín’s order blocks DHS from carrying out certain field investigations into suspected illegal voting involving U.S. citizens in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Several of those states are led by Democrats who have opposed the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies, and some face high-profile elections in November.

Cracking down on illegal voting has been a priority for the second Trump administration, though it has yet to produce evidence of widespread noncitizen voting.

The judge delayed enforcement of her order until Friday, giving the Trump administration time to appeal, and set the restrictions to expire on Election Day unless otherwise ordered.

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"DHS is laser focused on identifying, prosecuting, and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens. ONLY Americans should elect American leaders," a spokesperson for the department told Fox News Digital. "We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens."

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FIRST ON FOX: A federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama is being accused of "misconduct" in a case involving President Donald Trump.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is demanding an investigation into U.S. Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida after she sanctioned Trump's lawyers over his case against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Jordan wrote to the Judicial Conference of the United States that "there is evidence that Judge Williams abused her judicial authority and violated fundamental tenets of judicial impartiality in connection with an unusual and unsupported order that imposed sanctions after the plaintiffs voluntarily had dismissed the underlying action."

The letter is being co-led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the panel's subcommittee on courts.

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Trump, his adult sons Eric and Donald Jr., and the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the IRS in early 2026 seeking $10 billion in damages after a contractor with the agency leaked the president's tax returns to the press. The contractor, Charles Littlejohn, was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

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Trump, who filed the lawsuit in his personal capacity, had it voluntarily dismissed in May. Shortly after, however, the administration announced a settlement agreement that included $1.776 billion for an "anti-weaponization fund" for victims of "lawfare" by the Biden administration. Trump himself would receive no compensation, but would get a formal apology from the federal government and bar the IRS from ever auditing Trump or his family.

Williams, however, then accused the plaintiffs of purposely manipulating the courts to achieve the settlement and sanctioned two of the president's lawyers in a July order. Her order referred lawyer Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar for potential disciplinary action and prevented lawyer Daniel Epstein from practicing under her jurisdiction for at least a year.

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Jordan's letter called the timing of Williams' order "suspect" for coming after the case was voluntarily withdrawn.

He also accused Williams of basing the action on an amicus brief submitted by left-wing judicial activist group Democracy Defenders Action. The brief, which the group said was submitted on behalf of 35 former federal judges, called on Williams to reopen the case despite the dismissal by the involved parties and accused both sides of "fraud" over the settlement.

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"Judge Williams issued her July 13 order after the plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal of the case, ending the dispute between the parties," Jordan and Issa wrote. "Although Judge Williams invoked the court's inherent authority to impose sanctions, the Committee is not aware of Eleventh Circuit precedent applying inherent sanctions authority after a plaintiff has voluntarily dismissed a case based on briefing by partisan nonparties on an unrelated question the court never decided."

They concluded, "Judge Williams's conduct risks undermining public confidence in the federal courts. Accordingly, we respectfully ask that the Judicial Conference review this matter, including whether it warrants referral to the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit or other appropriate action, and that you inform the Committee of steps taken no later than 5:00 p.m. on November 5, 2026."

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Issa told Fox News Digital in his own statement, "The rogue federal judges who make up the Trump Resistance in Robes continue to disappoint but never surprise. Judge Williams hasn't only shown her liberal contempt for President Trump — but crossed a bright ethical line by going after his attorneys."

Trump allies, particularly in Congress, have clashed with federal judges on multiple fronts so far this term. Republicans have accused what they call "activist judges" of weaponizing their courts to block Trump's agenda.

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Democrats, meanwhile, backed up Williams' skepticism of Trump's settlement. The anti-weaponization fund proposal, which has since been blocked by other courts, has received bipartisan pushback.