#preliminary injunction

[nationallawreview]

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Vacates Its Own Stay Rendering the Corporate Transparency Act Unenforceable . . . Again

On December 26, 2024, in Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc. v. Garland, No. 24-40792, 2024 WL 5224138 (5th Cir. Dec. 26, 2024), a merits panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an order vacating the Court’s own stay of the preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”), that was originally entered by the United States District Court…

[aanews69]

Biden's student loan cancellation Moving Forward. Wait Not so fast! #StudentLoanForgiveness #LoanForgiveness #EducationDebate #DebtReliefBlocked #biden #MOHELA Subscribe👇: https://vist.ly/3mhygpx Get Gear 👉: https://vist.ly/3mhygpw

[lets-steal-an-archive]

HAPPY PRIDE: GO GET YOUR FUCKING PASSPORTS! 🏳️‍⚧️

Posted: June 17, 2025; Update: June 20, 2025:

[luckystarchild]

US District Court Judge John Coughenour is a goddamn hero.

He issued a nationwide injunction today protecting birthright citizenship.

“It has become ever more apparent that to our president the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” Coughenour said Thursday. “In this courtroom, and under my watch, the rule of law is a bright beacon which I intend to follow.”

[adersonherra]

Naples Pride Festival in Florida amid political struggles

Naples Pridein Florida get a permit to hold its annual festival in Cambier Park this coming June.The council voted 5-2 in favor of a permit for Pride Fest on Saturday, June 7.The council action makes it clear that the indoors drag show will be open only to people who are 18 years and older. No minors will be allowed in the center during any drag show.

This year the group asked for outdoors drag shows, even if minors were present in Cambier Park. The drag events have been indoors at Norris the past two years.

Jan 15, 2025，over 50 people spoke during public comment.Those against the event expressed concerns about drag shows and the presence of children, while supporters described Naples Pride Fest as a celebration of love, acceptance, inclusion, and unity."The grooming of children, minors, for the gratification of adults, no matter the orientation, even heterosexuals, is a crime and always has been," Priscilla Gray said during a public comment period."I wish our elected officials would focus on addressing the real needs from their constituents, instead of framing it as a way to protect children," Cori Craciun said. "All while they put the entire community at risk."

Another speaker highlighted the event’s purpose: “Naples Pride Day is a day for the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate achievements, promote visibility, pursue equality and honor those who fought for LGBTQ+ rights.”

Naples Pride has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Naples and its entities for denying the non-profit organization a special events permit to host a family-friendly drag performance in one of the city’s public parks as part of its annual Pridefest celebration.The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, argues the First Amendment forbids the City of Naples from burdening the protected speech of Naples Pride—and the ability of its willing audience to receive that speech—because some members of the Naples community disapprove of its message.

“Before the City, emboldened by anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, imposed unconstitutional burdens on Pridefest, Naples Pride was able to feature its family-friendly drag performance without issue for years,” said Samantha Past, LGBTQ+ Rights Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Florida. “The First Amendment ensures that viewpoint and content-based discrimination cannot infringe on freedom of speech and expression. Drag is an art form that holds great significance to the LGBTQ+ community both as a form of social commentary and celebration. Drag is constitutionally protected, even if someone doesn’t like it.”

In May 2023, Florida lawmakers enacted a law targeting drag performances, authorizing the State to revoke or suspend the operating and liquor licenses of any establishment that knowingly admits a minor, despite parental consent, to a drag performance. On June 23, 2023, a federal judge blocked Florida’s anti-drag law, finding that it likely violated the First Amendment, and it remains blocked until today. Here, the City imposed several additional restrictions beyond those required by the blocked state law.

On May 12, a federal judge ruled that Naples' restrictions on activity violated part of the First Amendment.District Judge John Steele ordered a partial preliminary injunction in Naples Pride’s ongoing lawsuit against the city, allowing the annual Pride Month drag performance to take place this year on the main stage of Naples’ Cambier Park, with all ages allowed to attend.

The annual Pridefest is the largest fundraiser for the LGBTQ+ social services nonprofit.Callhan Soldavini is a board member of and attorney for Naples Pride. She says that the ruling makes clear that city governments can’t silence free speech in the name of public safety.

The Naples city government said in a statement:“Notwithstanding the Court’s decisions yesterday, the City believes it has legal authority to grant special event permits on its property with reasonable conditions to ensure public safety. The City is currently evaluating the orders rendered yesterday and will determine its next steps.”

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON ― More than 5,000 people got their jobs back at the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month after a government employee oversight board concluded they had been illegally fired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The decision by that panel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, came after it restored the jobs of six other federal employees who had been similarly fired by DOGE.

Meanwhile, this month, a federal judge blocked DOGE from firing the president of a small federal agency, the U.S. African Development Foundation, in a lawsuit that provides the clearest details yet on how DOGE operates and how it may be routinely breaking the law.

All of these legal challenges came from the same group, a well-funded progressive legal organization, Democracy Forward.

At a time when the flood of litigation against President Donald Trump’s early actions is nearly impossible to keep up with ― his administration has already been hit with more than 130 legal challenges in the span of two months ― Democracy Forward has emerged as a leading legal organization that’s been slowing, if not stopping, some of Trump’s recklessness through the courts.

The group doesn’t just stand out for the number of lawsuits it’s been filing, which include more than 28 legal actions and 67 investigations since Trump was sworn in. Democracy Forward has shown it can move quickly to step in amid Trump’s chaotic, and often illegal, efforts to dismantle entire agencies, freeze federal spending, and fire thousands of federal employees. It has intervened on behalf of individual people, unions, nonprofit groups, health care professionals, educators, veterans groups and religious groups.

And importantly, it’s been winning.

On Saturday, Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Trump’s expansion of war time powers to deport immigrants using the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act. Within hours, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Trump from removing some people through this act ― and later that day, broadened the scope of his order to cover all immigrants in danger of removal under the act.

In another case brought by Democracy Forward, a federal judge last week reaffirmed the court’s nationwide preliminary injunction (i.e., a temporary court order to preserve the status quo) that halted Trump’s efforts to arbitrarily terminate federal grants relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, and accessibility programs. The judge reaffirmed that not only can Trump not do that, but that this temporary halt applies to all agencies in the executive branch.

The group also secured the first and only nationwide order preventing Trump from imposing a sweeping freeze on trillions of dollars in federal spending, blocked a Trump administration policy enabling immigration enforcement officers to indiscriminately raid houses of worship, and this week prompted a federal judge to slam the Trump administration’s defense of DOGE and grant a request by labor and economic organizations to get more details about the Elon Musk-led entity unlawfully accessing sensitive data at federal agencies.

The evidence the Trump administration put forward to avoid more transparency into DOGE’s operations “is not the panacea they hoped it would be,” this judge concluded.

A big reason this organization has been so adept at countering Trump in court is because it spent the last 18 months gaming out legal strategies for responding to countless policy plans laid out in Project 2025, the far-right policy blueprint that the Heritage Foundation put together in preparation for a second Trump presidency.

Democracy Forward staff indexed the entire 900-page policy playbook, broke it down into different categories, put it in a spreadsheet and meticulously laid out what legal actions they should prepare to take based on how the Trump administration was likely to proceed with various policies, whether it be through executive orders, statutes or regulations.

They also coordinated with more than 450 civil society groups and state attorneys general to prepare for different scenarios where certain groups would be impacted by Project 2025 policies, and figured out when they should team up to defend the rule of law.

Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail because lots of its plans are extreme and unpopular. But the policy guidebook was put together by former Trump administration officials and staunch allies, so it’s not surprising to see the president now moving aggressively to enact some of its proposals, like purging tens of thousands of federal workers for political reasons or abolishing the Department of Education.

In fact, late Thursday, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the education department. Minutes later, Democracy Forward announced it would see him in court.

“Trump’s playbook is a known playbook,” Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and CEO, told HuffPost in an interview. “The Heritage Foundation wrote it down: Project 2025. We never believed it was a talking point or hyperbole. It is the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.”

Democracy Forward also prepared for a second Trump presidency by gathering materials from his first administration to review what legal actions and litigation he previously pursued, whether they be related to his executive orders, immigration cases, impoundment or challenges to executive orders issued by former President Joe Biden.

The president has done some unexpected things in his second term, like tapping Musk to oversee DOGE and letting him gain access to millions of Americans’ personal data. But Perryman said her organization was primed to respond to something chaotic, and in the case of DOGE, they sued on day one.

“This is like basic stuff,” she said.

“They do not play within the rules. There is opportunity in their lawlessness,” Perryman said. “They make a lot of legal foibles.”

Democracy Forward currently represents the American Federation of Teachers in two lawsuits, one that aims to halt DOGE’s seizure of millions of people’s sensitive data from the Social Security Administration, and another challenging a new Department of Education policy threatening to withhold federal money from schools teaching accurate history about slavery and diversity.

AFT, which has more than 1.8 million members, had been preparing to fight Trump’s executive order to dissolve the Department of Education when the department unexpectedly announced a new policy of stripping federal funds from schools that support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, said Daniel McNeil, general counsel at AFT. So the teachers’ group asked Democracy Forward if they wanted to team up to fight that, too.

“They already had something ready to go,” McNeil said. “It took working through the entire weekend to get it done, but they weren’t fazed at all by the fact that something else happened.”

AFT is working with other legal groups suing the Trump administration, he said, and they’re also doing good work. What’s unique about Democracy Forward’s model, though, is that they have their own attorneys doing the litigating versus hiring outside firms, and they have experts on staff, like someone who previously worked in the general counsel’s office at the Department of Education. They’ve also just been anticipating specific legal fights, he said.

“Of all the groups that were warning about Project 2025, they were systematically planning for the legal fight in the event that Trump were elected,” said McNeil. “For months in advance, they were thinking in a way that was like, ‘How do we challenge an executive order that does X? Who is the right party to challenge if Y happens?’ I think that’s what makes them different.”

Democracy Forward first launched in 2017, in response to what it described as the first Trump administration’s “unprecedented” threats to democracy and the rule of law. By 2019, it had sued his administration more than 100 times and chalked up several wins, including forcing the administration to collect pay data from employers based on race, gender and ethnicity, and forcing the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes.

Both Democracy Forward and its nonprofit counterpart, Democracy Forward Foundation, are chaired by Marc Elias, who served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The nonprofit is funded entirely by individual donors and philanthropic institutions. Its major donors include the Sandler Foundation, which gave $16 million from 2018 to 2023, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which gave $5.6 million from 2021 to 2023.

Democracy Forward was operating with a budget of about $12.4 million in 2023, the most recent year its tax filings are available.

The organization has been hiring up for Trump’s second term. Last month, it brought on more litigators, public affairs specialists and operations personnel ― several of whom are seasoned former federal staffers from agencies that Democracy Forward will likely be seeing in court amid its lawsuits against the Trump administration, including the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Interior Department.

One of its newest hires, Joel McElvain, was the acting deputy general counsel at HHS, where he was responsible for legal advice on all matters relating to Medicare and Medicaid statutes and the Affordable Care Act. Another recent hire, Michael Waldman, was special counsel at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where he advised the secretary on oversight matters and managed the department’s responses to congressional inquiries.

Shawn Phetteplace of Main Street Alliance, a network of roughly 30,000 small business owners that support left-of-center policies, has worked with Democracy Forward for years and is currently represented by them in three cases against the Trump administration. One case relates to the Office of Management and Budget’s freeze on billions of dollars on Jan. 27 in congressional approved federal grants being disbursed.

This funding freeze resulted in multiple small business owners having their money cut off, to the point where they weren’t sure if they could continue to operate, said Phetteplace. Within hours of OMB announcing its new directive, Democracy Forward requested a temporary restraining order in federal court. A judge granted that order on Feb. 3, and by Feb. 25, the judge granted a preliminary injunction, blocking the nationwide freeze from taking effect, for now.

“They keep winning,” Phetteplace said of Democracy Forward. “For our members, this isn’t theoretical. This is whether or not they stay in business.”

He chalks up some of the group’s success to the public-facing push it makes on the cases it’s fighting. He gave the example of Main Street Alliance members reaching out to the group to talk about how their businesses were hurt by Trump’s policies, and then how litigation has helped them. Democracy Forward has been incorporating those stories into its public statements as it moves forward with various lawsuits.

“They understand that it is really important to shape the public narrative around the issue and educate the public about the stakes,” he said. “That helps them make a stronger case.”

To be sure, Democracy Forward has faced setbacks in stemming Trump’s chaos, and that’s due to at least some of its victories being temporary. Last month, it filed emergency litigation in response to Trump’s plans to unilaterally defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a financial watchdog agency. Their quick legal action resulted in the administration backing off its plans, instead agreeing to wait until a related case was heard in court.

A federal judge has since heard that case ― and this week denied the plaintiffs’ request to halt the administration’s plans for CFPB.

Temporary wins are still wins. When a judge issues a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, it immediately blocks an action and buys time. Preliminary injunctions in particular can drag on for a long time. Democracy Forward and other groups have already demonstrated that collectively taking these legal steps has a real effect on slowing Trump’s unlawful, everywhere-all-at-once approach to dismantling the federal government.

Democracy Forward chalked up another temporary, but significant, victory in one of its cases late on Thursday: A federal judge blocked DOGE workers from accessing Social Security systems, calling the Musk-led efforts at this agency a “fishing expedition.”

“This is a major win for working people and retirees across the country,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “This decision will not only force them to delete any data they have currently saved, but it will also block them from further sharing, accessing or disclosing our Social Security information.”

Some Trump allies are mad at the success that Democracy Forward and other groups have found in the courts, particularly in cases where judges have issued nationwide injunctions halting some of the president’s actions. In a nonsensical show of fealty to Trump, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Thursday vowed to introduce legislation to prevent U.S. district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions ― something that is, in fact, their jobs.

“That is not a power that I think district courts have,” Hawley, a Yale Law School alum who knows better, claimed on The Charlie Kirk Show, a far-right podcast. “Either the Supreme Court needs to intervene and make clear there’s only one court that can issue rules for the whole country … and/or, if they won’t do that, Congress needs to legislate and make clear that district courts do not have the ability to issue these kinds of injunctions.”

For her part, Perryman said one reason it’s important to slow things down in the courts is because it creates transparency on what Trump is actually doing. Doing so gives Americans a better understanding of the illegality of his actions, she said, and forces his administration to keep answering for what it’s doing.

“Understand that chaos is part of the strategy,” she said.

“Every day in litigation, what we see in this administration is they back off,” Perryman added. “Because really, the purpose is to see what they can do quickly. They don’t hold great conviction. There is opportunity in that.”

[saywhat-politics]

The second Trump administration "has thrown agencies into chaos, disrupting critical services provided across our nation," the coalition behind the lawsuit said, welcoming the temporary restraining order.

A federal judge in California on Friday temporarily blocked what at coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits argued was "the unconstitutional dismantling of the federal government by the president of the United States on a scale unprecedented in this country’s history and in clear excess of his authority."

Since returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump—aided by his so-callled Department of Government Efficiency and its de facto leader, billionaire Elon Musk—has worked to quickly overhaul the bureaucracy, even though "the president does not possess authority to reorganize, downsize, or otherwise transform the agencies of the federal government, unless and until Congress authorizes such action," as the coalition's complaint notes.

District Judge Susan Illston agreed with the groups and governments, which include the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Alliance for Retired Americans, Main Street Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, the city and county of San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, and more.

"The president has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganizations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch," wrote Illston in a 42-page decision. "Many presidents have sought this cooperation before; many iterations of Congress have provided it. Nothing prevents the president from requesting this cooperation—as he did in his prior term of office."

"Indeed, the court holds the president likely must request congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime," said the judge, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by former President Bill Clinton.

Illston added that "a temporary restraining order is, by definition, temporary. The court will not consider defendants' request for a stay of execution of the temporary restraining order, as doing so would render the exercise pointless. The court must promptly proceed to consideration of a preliminary injunction."

[opencommunion]

this Friday Jan 26th, the first hearing in the US federal lawsuit charging Biden with complicity in genocide, Defense for Children International - Palestine v. Biden, will be livestreamed: "Pre-hearing Briefing (Online) Time: 7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. (PST) / 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EST) / 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. (Palestine)

During the YouTube livestream, lawyers, advocates, and organizers will share analysis about the importance to the Palestinian solidarity movement of this momentous court hearing and the DCIP v. Biden case, which charges the Biden administration with complicity in and failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide against Palestinians. You can watch at on the Center for Constitutional Rights YouTube page. 

Hearing in Defense for Children International - Palestine v. Biden (In-person & online) Time: 9:00 a.m. (PST) / 12 p.m. (EST) / 7 p.m. (Palestine) 

The hearing, which will include live testimony by our plaintiffs and expert, will take place in person at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 1301 Clay Street in Oakland, CA. You can also watch the court’s online stream – instructions for how to join the public hearing on Zoom can be found on Judge White’s page on the court website. A recording of the hearing will be made available by the court at a later date.

Defense for Children International - Palestine v. Biden was filed in November by the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsel Van Der Hout LLP against the President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense on behalf of two Palestinian human rights organizations and eight Palestinians in the U.S. and Palestine. The case challenges the U.S. government's failure to prevent and complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people and asks the court to order the Biden administration to cease diplomatic and military support and comply with its legal obligations under international and federal law. The hearing on the preliminary injunction motion and the government’s motion to dismiss the case will take place on Friday, January 26.

Find out more on our case page and Stop the Genocide resource page."

[jeffalessandrelli]

Jamie Raskin, a Democratic representative from Maryland, noted that Democrats and their allies have filed more than 125 cases against various attacks on the rule of law and obtained more than 40 temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions.

“We’re in the fight of our lives,” he told the Guardian. “This is not a two-week, two-month or even two-year fight that we’re in. This is going to take us many years to defeat the forces of authoritarian reaction, and the Democrats are rising to the occasion.

“If you look at the way democratic societies responded to fascism a century ago, it just takes time for people to realign and refocus and mobilise a concerted and unified response. Are we there yet? No. But are we going to be in a place where we can stand together and defeat authoritarianism in our country? Yes, we are going to get there.”

Norm Eisen, a lawyer and founder of State Democracy Defenders Action, has brought successful cases that stopped Trump targeting thousands of FBI employees and blocked Musk’s access to sensitive data at the treasury department. He said: “Donald Trump is definitely pushing towards authoritarianism. He promised to be a dictator on day one and he hasn’t stopped. That’s the bad news.

“The good news is that he has met vigorous pushback from litigants like myself and many others and from courts at every level. So far, his most outrageous illegal conduct has been countered.”

If the Trump administration ignores such orders, the US could face a full-blown constitutional crisis. But Eisen retains measured optimism, saying: “It’s a mistake to count us out. We have so surprised ourselves and the world over and over again in our history and there is cause for hope here when you see the furious legal pushback by lawyers.

“There is reason for hope but nobody knows. Will we go the way of Brazil, Poland, Czech Republic, where I was ambassador, all of which pushed out autocratic regimes in recent years? Or will we go the way of Hungary and Turkey, which failed to oust autocrats? It remains to be seen but I, at least, am hopeful.”

[nationallawreview]

Client Alert Update: Developments in the Corporate Transparency Act Injunction

As we previously reported, a nationwide preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was issued on December 3, 2024. Since our last update, there have been significant developments: Fifth Circuit Stay and Revival of CTA Enforcement: On December 23, 2024, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed the lower court’s…

[carriesthewind]

It is always worth the time to point and laugh at fascists, and remember these are the clowns we are fighting:

Full captioned text below the cut.

(yes it's real)

"TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………. Error! Bookmark not defined. BACKGROUND ………………………………………………………………… Error! Bookmark not defined. I. The Shelter and Services Program. ……………………………. Error! Bookmark not defined. II. The Roosevelt Hotel ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5 III. Plaintiff’s Award and FEMA’s Temporary Withholding of Funds. …………………………….. 5 IV. This Lawsuit. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 LEGAL STANDARDS ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 ARGUMENT …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9 I. Emergency Relief Is Not Warranted Because Plaintiff Makes No Showing, Much Less a Strong Showing, of Irreparable Harm. ………………………………………………………………….. 9 II. Plaintiff Is Not Substantially Likely to Succeed on the Merits. ….. Error! Bookmark not defined. A. Plaintiff’s Claims Are Not Cognizable Under The APA. …………. Error! Bookmark not defined. B. Plaintiff Does Not Challenge Final Agency Action ……. Error! Bookmark not defined. C. Plaintiff’s APA and Due Process Claims Are Not Likely to Succeed . Error! Bookmark not defined. D. Plaintiff’s Constitutional Claims Are Not Likely to Succeed …… Error! Bookmark not defined. III. The Equities Weigh Against Emergency Relief. ………….. Error! Bookmark not defined. IV. Relief Against The President Is Improper. ………………….. Error! Bookmark not defined. V. If the Court Grants Relief, It Should Issue a Preliminary Injunction, Stay the Order, and Require Plaintiff to Submit a Bond as Security……….. Error! Bookmark not defined. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………… Error! Bookmark not defined."

[follow-up-news]

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from limiting passport sex markers for many transgender and nonbinary Americans. Tuesday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick means that transgender or nonbinary people who are without a passport or need to apply for a new one can request a male, female or “X” identification marker rather than being limited to the marker that matches the gender assigned at birth. In an executive order signed in January, the president used a narrow definition of the sexes instead of a broader conception of gender. The order said a person is male or female and rejected the idea that someone can transition from the sex assigned at birth to another gender. Kobick first issued a preliminary injunction against the policy last month, but that ruling applied only to six people who joined with the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit over the passport policy. In Tuesday’s ruling she agreed to expand the injunction to include transgender or nonbinary people who are currently without a valid passport, those whose passport is expiring within a year, and those who need to apply for a passport because theirs was lost or stolen or because they need to change their name or sex designation.

[transfemme-shelterdog]

USAmericans, an injunction has been filed, granting temporary relief, that allows you to change your gender markers on your passports