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October 2018

The UK Supreme Court has ruled in favor of two Christian bakers who refused to bake a cake iced with the slogan "support gay marriage." In a unanimous ruling, the five member Supreme Court bench reversed the previous rulings, upholding a business owners' right to freedom of expression and conscience.

"This court has held that nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe,” court president Brenda Hale said.

The California Motor Voter program was promoted as a way to make registering to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) more convenient. Eligible applicants would completing a driver license, identification (ID) card or change of address transaction with the DMV, and then would be automatically registered to vote by the California Secretary of State (unless they choose to opt out), The new rule is as successful as I anticipated. The only law that really works in California is the one involving unintended consequences.

You hear it everywhere right now: the Republican Party is united as never before. Mitch McConnell was pretty witty about it: “I want to thank the mob because they’ve done the one thing we were having trouble doing, which was energizing the base.”

The Baltimore police officers who are suing State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby for maliciously investigating and defaming them when she criminally charging them over the death of Freddie Gray while he was in police custody have appealed the 4th Circuit’s dismissal of their case to the US Supreme Court, according to the Baltimore Sun. A copy of the officers' petition for certiorari to the US Supreme Court is embedded at the bottom of this post. In addition, you can find my extensive coverage of the Freddie Gray cases over at Legal Insurrection by clicking here.

Midterm elections are only a few weeks away so we're watching the polls closer each day. I found that polls for the Senate races in Missouri, Arizona, North Dakota, and Tennessee have the Republican candidates in the lead. Democrat incumbent Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is only down a point, but Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally slightly raised her lead as she tries to take over retiring Sen. Jeff Flake's seat.

The Democrats are looking for a fight. Their leadership and base has encouraged street harassment of Republicans, and their candidates are following suit. Likely Democrat presidential candidates are falling all over each other trying to show who will be the most aggressive in going after Republicans.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh is already demonstrating why he is my favorite Supreme Court justice. Kavanaugh survived a confirmation "trial" that rivaled nearly anything seen on the TV series Game of Thrones. Then, on his first day on the job, the court refused to hear an appeal of a D.C. Circuit ruling that limited what the Environmental Protection Agency can do. As an extra bonus, Kavanaugh wrote the original ruling that was to be considered.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a lawsuit challenging a lower court ruling written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Stanford Daily reported that Stanford University student Melissa Hernandez allegedly assaulted Stanford College Republican (SCR) President John Rice-Cameron, the son of President Barack Obama's national security advisor Susan Rice. The alleged assault occurred at a tabling event on campus the SCR held in support of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.