The federal District Court for the Northern District of California (Charles R. Breyer) has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the removal of federalized National Guard troops from California.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a Memorandum for all Federal Prosecutors, Law Enforcement Agencies and Department of Justice Grant-Making Components “implementing” President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.  It significantly expands the kind of thinking that can be considered in defining terrorism.

The federal District Court in Texas hearing the challenge to the constitutionality of the so-called “Johnson Amendment” that prohibits charities from participating in election campaigns has denied a request by Americans United for Separation of Church and State to intervene in the case.

You know your case is in trouble when the Court opens its opinion with “the old question: ‘Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?’”

Such was the problem for Lake Jordan Holdings, LLC, an organization that bought 165 acres of land in rural Elmore County, AL, for $583,000 in 2017 and a few months later granted a conservation easement on 157 acres, for which it claimed a $12,740,000 charitable contribution tax deduction on its tax return.  It was “yet another in the depressingly long line of cash grabs dressed up in eleemosynary clothing,” the Tax Court said.

The Texas statute granting real estate tax exemption to churches that use property for religious purposes applies where the church is the “equitable owner” of the property that is legally owned by a non-religious entity, the Court of Appeals of Texas has held. It has applied a definition of “ownership” utilized by the state Supreme Court in granting tax exemption to real estate equitably owned by a community housing development organization (a “CHODO”).

The “ministerial exception” recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court to prohibit courts from deciding employment disputes involving church employees does not prohibit a court from deciding a minimum wage and overtime claim when there is no evidence that those claims would interfere with internal church decisions that affect the faith or mission of the church.  An appellate court in California has held that a court can consider the claims.

The federal District Court for the Northern District of California (William H. Orrick) has followed several other courts in enjoining the implementation of anti-DEI provisions in contracts for grants from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A federal District Court in Illinois (Sara J. Ellis) has preliminarily enjoined Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from violating the Constitutional rights of protesters in Chicago, filing an extensive written opinion to follow her oral temporary restraining order issued on October 9 and modified on October 17.  The modified order required all federal agents trained in using body-warn cameras to activate them when engaged in enforcement activity.