Free Republic

Dem cops cuff, stuff Christian girls Sidewalk chalk messages challenged Obama's moral positions ****************** Posted: August 29, 2008 12:30 am Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily DENVER – Two teenagers who had been given city permission to write their messages protesting Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's support for abortion on public sidewalks during the Democratic National Convention this week were shoved to the sidewalk, cuffed and arrested for doing just that. [SNIP] "I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind," Jayne White, 17, described. "As I was being...

By Michelle Malkin  •  August 26, 2008 04:41 PM I noted this morning that the Obama campaign’s Chicago-style thug effort to shut down the independent ad on Bill Ayers is part of the larger effort to intimidate conservative donors and curtail the free speech of The One’s critics.It’s getting uglier, people. Obama’s lawyer has sent a second letter to the Justice Department calling for the head of Dallas billionare Harold Simmons, who funded the Ayers ad that the Obama campaign doesn’t want the public to see.Feel the chill: Obama general counsel Bob Bauer today sent a second, sharper letter to the Justice...

The same California Supreme Court that created a "right" to homosexual "marriage" earlier this year has now ruled that the state may force healthcare professionals to provide services that support an immoral and physically dangerous lifestyle. California's highest court was unanimous in its decision on Monday that Christian doctors may not refuse to perform artificial insemination for homosexual patients. (See "California court says no religious exemption for doctors") Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), reacts to the ruling. "This is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of individuals to live and practice their faith," he...

Blogger and Brooklyn College Professor of Business Mitchell Langbert has been doing a yeoman’s job investigating the records of Senator Obama’s birth certificate. Despite the pleas from many quarters of the blogosphere, thus far his birth certificate has not been made public, except for a proven forgery on the Daily Kos site and his own campaign site Fight the Smears. At this time, there is no proof that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, and therefore no proof of his eligibility to be president. What should be a simple matter of producing a paper document...

Lurking in the gloom of the Democrat agenda is a resuscitation of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” which would allow the federal government, at the behest of liberal special interests, to selectively harass and intimidate radio stations whose broadcasting format it finds objectionable. Thus, the proliferation of conservative talk-radio and virtually all of the alternative media would be threatened with eventual extinction. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is unquestionably moving in such a direction once again. In only the past few weeks, she has castigated what she terms “right wing hate-radio,” while refusing to allow even for Congressional floor debate on a...

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, “Fairness Doctrine” that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums - nothing. This was first reported to me by Congressman John Culberson (R-Tx) and I asked for approval to cite him and for any media links to this story. He provided the following link of regulations proposed by the Chair...

For the second consecutive year, a gay pride parade and festival was marked by the arrest of a Wichita pastor. But for the vast majority of those who gathered Sunday afternoon at Naftzger Park for the event, the day was one of celebration. "It means a lot to me," said Ken Gehmlich, president of Wichita Pride, which sponsors the annual event. "I think it's great that we can come together as family." Organizers estimated that about 100 people walked in the parade and that more than 1,000 attended the festival, which featured live music and vendors. After the parade traversed...

In the name of "defin[ing] clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt" the Associated Press is now selling "quotation licenses" that allow bloggers, journallers, and people who forward quotations from articles to co-workers to quote their articles. The licenses start at $12.50 for quotations of 5-25 words. The licensing system exhorts you to snitch on people who publish without paying the blood-money, offering up to $1 million in reward money (they also think that "fair use" -- the right to copy without permission -- means "Contact the owner of...

A pro-family activist and former presidential candidate says it is outrageous that military personnel in uniform, who use public transportation while traveling to the Pentagon, are being publically harassed by anti-war leftists. The Air Force recently issued a security advisory, relating several incidents where military personnel have been approached by individuals expressing themselves as anti-government and shouting anti-war sentiments. Gary Bauer, Chairman of American Values, says in one case a woman in uniform was followed as she exited a Washington, D.C., subway train and a left wing thug continued to berate her as she exited the metro station. Bauer believes...

ANN ARBOR, MI — The Thomas More Law Center, a national public-interest law firm, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that it has filed a federal lawsuit defending the Constitutional rights of a sixth grader to wear t-shirts to school that express his pro-life beliefs. The lawsuit was filed in the U. S. District Court for the District of Minnesota against the Hutchinson Middle School located in Hutchinson, Minnesota. The sixth grader, referred to in the lawsuit as “K. B.” because of his age, is a Christian who believes that abortion is the wrongful taking of an innocent life...

CHICAGO (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday barred school districts statewide from holding the daily moment of silence suitable for prayer that is required under state law. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman said he had given school districts time to object to his March 28 preliminary injunction on enforcement of the moment of silence law but received no objections. He therefore extended to the entire state the preliminary injunction originally designed to apply only to suburban Buffalo Grove District 214. The law passed by the Illinois General Assembly says every school district in the state must hold a...

WASHINGTON: Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy has a malignant brain tumour, his doctors said last night, of a type considered potentially very dangerous. Kennedy has a glioma and likely will require chemotherapy and radiation therapy, neurologist Dr Lee Schwamm of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Dr Larry Ronan, a primary physician there said. Kennedy, 76, has been admitted to hospital since he had a seizure on Saturday. He was airlifted to Massachusetts General Hospital on Saturday morning after being rushed by ambulance to a local hospital near his family's Cape Cod vacation compound.

MY POST ON SAT EVE: HR 2905 The Broadcaster Freedom Act, introduced by R-IN Rep Mike Pence needs our Support Special Program: Silencing Christians, and Christian Broadcastors on INSP 9pm ^ | 05/17/08 | Kackikat Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008 11:09:40 PM by Kackikat Read about this bill Action Alert: Article on American Family Alert Website link above. Also see website of http://www.silencingchristians.com/ Fairness Doctrine would muzzle truth from the airwaves Urge your member of congress to support the Broadcaster Freedom Act H.R. 2905, The Broadcaster Freedom Act, introduced by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), would prohibit the Federal Communication...

HT: TradenCheese This is an excellent commentary by Judge Andrew Napolitano, who appears on FOXNews regularly. Please note the audio is a little lacking but you’ll have little problem hearing the words of truth. I do not know when this was first aired. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvu12z832Xc

NEW YORK — Conservative legal advocates are recruiting pastors nationwide to defy an IRS ban on preaching about politicians, in a challenge they hope will abolish the restriction. The Alliance Defense Fund, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., will ask the clergy to deliver a sermon about specific candidates Sept. 28. If the action triggers an IRS investigation, the legal group will sue to overturn the federal rules, which were enacted in 1954. Under the IRS code, churches can distribute voter guides, run voter registration drives, hold forums on public policy and invite politicians to speak at their congregations. However, they cannot...

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (Our Sunday Visitor) – "The church is at risk of being brought before some international court if the debate becomes any tenser, if the more radical requests get heard." Those words, spoken by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, about the Church's position on life and family issues, have a tinge of the apocalyptic in them. And when the cardinal first uttered them, during an interview in June with the Italian news magazine, Famiglia Christiana, more than a few skeptics questioned the probability of the cardinal's doomsday scenario coming to pass....

The East Brunswick school board was within its rights to tell a football coach he cannot kneel and bow his head as members of his team have a student-led pre-game prayer, a federal appeals court ruled today.  The ruling from the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia reversed a lower-court ruling made almost two years ago.  All three members of the three-judge panel wrote their own opinions on the issue, which pits the right to free speech against the freedom from official establishment of a religion.The judges agreed the East Brunswick Board of Education's policy barring school...

OLATHE, Kansas, April 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Chief of Police Janet Thiessen of Olathe, Kansas, has issued a personal apology to Ronald Brock, who was ordered to leave town by Sgt. David Haldeman on Tuesday evening or face arrest. Brock was driving a vehicle with photographs of victims of abortion and victims of the Jewish Holocaust of World War II.Haldeman has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into the incident. Brock confirmed that he received a personal phone call from Chief Thiessen who apologized to him for the incident.   Operation Rescue President Troy Newman received an...

Muhammad Al-Munajid: Some of these heretics say: "Islam is not the private property of anyone." So what do they want? They say: "No sect has a monopoly on Islam." So what do they want? They say: "We want to issue rulings." Someone who is ignorant, who does not know any Arabic, or who has no knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence wants to issue rulings?! They say: "We reinterpret the texts." There is a very dangerous conspiracy against the religion of Islam in newspapers and in what these people say. A journalist, or one of those lowlifes, wants to... These people are...

ADF attorneys represent a Christian photographer being tried under state antidiscrimination laws for declining to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony.” “Christians shouldn’t be penalized for abiding by their beliefs. The state cannot force unwilling people to promote a message they disagree with and thereby violate their conscience,” said Lorence. “The state’s prosecution violates our client’s First Amendment rights. The government cannot make people choose between their faith and their job.” A same-sex couple asked Elaine Huguenin, co-owner with her husband of Elane Photography, to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that the two women wanted to hold. Huguenin declined because her Christian...

A tangle with a cop and an achy heartBy Jeri Rowe Staff writer Tuesday, Apr. 1, 2008 3:00 am GREENSBORO — Alexander Kohanowich is a patriotic guy. His six grandchildren call him Pop. For at least five years, Pop has traveled around our city, showing his support for American troops overseas. He doesn't say much. He just holds his signs at busy intersections and busy events to get people's attention. Maybe you've seen him. He'll hang, say, on Westover Terrace, near Wendover. He'll face east in the morning, west in the afternoon, so drivers can see his signs clearly, without...

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider a free speech case in which a church wants to place a religious monument in a park. Officials in Pleasant Grove City, Utah, asked the court to step into the lawsuit brought by the religious group known as Summum, saying that if the group prevails, governments would be inundated with demands to display donated monuments. The dispute stems from Pleasant Grove City's refusal to allow the display of a "Seven Aphorisms of Summum" monument in the same park that is the home for a Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of...

CHICAGO (AP) - Craigslist should not be held liable for discriminatory housing ads posted on the popular Web site, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a win for San Francisco-based Craigslist, an online network of classified ads and forums on which more than 30 million notices are posted every month, according to the ruling. It is also a triumph for Internet sites that depend on user-generated content and for foes of legal boundaries for the Web, experts said. The ruling means "the soapbox is not liable for what the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- To the relief of a campus Republican group, the 417,000 students at California State University's 23 institutions no longer face the possibility of discipline for failing to be civil to one another. The change was part of a settlement approved by a federal magistrate in Oakland this week in a lawsuit by the San Francisco State College Republicans, whose members were subjected to a disciplinary hearing after some of them stomped on two flags bearing the name of Allah during an anti-terrorism rally in October 2006. The flags represented the militant organizations Hamas and Hezbollah and had...

Court challenge prompts CSU to drop civility code for students To the relief of a campus Republican group, the 417,000 students at California State University's 23 institutions no longer face the possibility of discipline for failing to be civil to one another. The change was part of a settlement approved by a federal magistrate in Oakland this week in a lawsuit by the San Francisco State College Republicans, whose members were subjected to a disciplinary hearing after some of them stomped on two flags bearing the name of Allah during an anti-terrorism rally in October 2006. The flags represented the...

A battle between two bloggers that raised First Amendment issues ended Wednesday in Shasta County Superior Court. Court Commissioner Gary Gibson rejected a restraining order sought by blogger and reporter Christy Lochrie against her one-time friend, Beth Doolittle-Norby. Lochrie writes for the Record Searchlight but sought the restraining order without the support of the newspaper. Doolittle-Norby has for months kept a scathingly critical blog aimed at the reporter. Gibson denied Lochrie's plea that Doolittle-Norby stay away from her and also take down the "No Phat Chicks" blog, which for months has poked fun at Lochrie's reporting, looks and personality. Gibson...

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal today by Novato school district officials who confiscated a student newspaper because of an editorial urging that any Latino who couldn't speak English be detained as a probable illegal immigrant. A state appeals court in San Francisco ruled last May that the Novato Unified School District had violated the rights of Andrew Smith, who wrote the editorial in the Novato High School newspaper, the Buzz, in November 2001. The court relied on a California law that protects free expression by public school students more strongly than the constitutional rights guaranteed under the First...

YORBA LINDA – The first Amendment was alive and well today, Presidents' Day, as demonstrators for and against the war in Iraq displayed signs along Yorba Linda Boulevard, in front of the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. The larger group, a dozen strong, set up on a corner waiving signs criticizing the war and handing out slices of "Bring Them Home-made Pie" to passersby. A man driving a yellow Hummer honked at the group and gave it a thumbs up. They responded in kind. One of the demonstrators, Pat Alviso, waved a sign with a picture of her son. "He...

>Nebraska State Senator DiAnna Schimek's 20-year legislative career is nearly over. She feels victimized, no doubt, by the voter-enacted term limits that make this her final year in power. Still, Senator Schimek hopes to go out with her boots on, firing one final shotgun blast to maim or kill the initiative process she has long abhorred. You see, it was only through the voter initiative that Nebraskans passed term limits . . . three times. Yup. It took three petition drives and three votes of the people. Of course, term limits passed overwhelmingly each time. But a charmed third initiative...

Sweden’s Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) has ruled this Jägermeister ad to be sexist. Do you agree? Youtube clip listed as not for minors

1. McCain Should Be Feared, Writer Says Presidential hopeful John McCain is being billed as the Republican that liberals can live with, but his credentials as a “bipartisan progressive� are in fact a “lazy, hazy myth,� according to liberal pundit Johann Hari. “The truth is that McCain is the candidate we should most fear,� writes Hari, a columnist for The Independent in Britain, in an article that appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “Not only is he to the right of Bush on a whole range of subjects, he is also the Republican candidate most likely to dispense with Hillary Clinton...

I posted a squib on the National Review Web site about a robo call I received from John McCain. (Virginia's primary is Tuesday.) The call stressed that he would, if elected, be a down-the-line limited government conservative who would never raise taxes, would defend life, would enforce immigration laws and would win the war on terror. The candidate is trying, I said, to meet conservatives "more than halfway." The response of readers was, shall we say, emphatic. One lady wrote that she would never vote for him as "He is the most disloyal, ill-tempered man and he brings out the...

Alice Camarillo, who is legally blind, says she was ridiculed when she asked for help reading the menu at fast-food restaurants like Burger King, McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's. She sued. A federal judge in Albany threw it out, saying the law doesn't require restaurant workers to be polite. Yesterday, a Manhattan federal appeals court overruled the lower court, and Camarillo can sue the restaurants under the Americans with Disabilities Act. "I feel good about it," Camarillo, who lives in upstate Hudson, told the Daily News. "I'm just sorry it took so long. Quite a few things that they did...

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - A police survey says panhandlers outside a Wal-Mart here can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much. Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech. "We are not going to target panhandlers," said Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock, who spoke a recent gathering of business owners about panhandling. "We can't do that. But if they aren't getting money from us, they aren't going to stand on that corner." He said most panhandlers are...

IMAGE: Star Simpson, right,19, of Lahaina, Hawaii, talks to her attorney, Thomas Dwyer, outside East Boston District Court, Friday, Feb. 1, 2008. Simpson was arrested by state troopers after she set off an airport bomb scare wearing a computer circuit board and wiring on her sweatshirt when she went to the airport to pick up her boyfriend last September. Simpson's attorney asked a judge to throw out the charges, saying the device was a legitimate form of free speech. (AP Photo/Bizuayehu Tesfaye)BOSTON (AP) — A computer science student who unwittingly created an airport bomb scare by wearing a blinking...

A student has been threatened with a 3-day suspension from school for bringing to campus, and using, a pen with the corporate logo of the Glock company, a large stylized "G" with the letters "lock" inside. Cooler heads eventually prevailed, and the father reports that he was successful in convincing the school officials to not only withdraw the threat, but also the formal reprimand that already had been placed in his son's educational file. Note: Read the complete article to find out how all this got started and the great response from the father, including what he has to say...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A national Latino group said Thursday it is fighting back against what it considers to be "hate speech" that has emerged from the debate over immigration. National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia announced plans to pressure television network executives and candidates seeking their parties' presidential nominations to clamp down on such remarks. The group launched a Web site to counter the speech, www.wecanstopthehate.org, with clips of what it considers offensive comments on television as well as a tracking of hate crimes. "Hate groups and extremists have taken over the immigration debate in an unprecedented wave...

Dear RNC: I am very concerned about the direction toward which it appears that the Republican Party is headed. In the words of Presidential hopeful John McCain, “they voted us in to change government, and the government changed us.” John McCain’s own admission of how he failed in his duty as Senator, along with the rest of our fellow Republicans who were voted out of office in 2006, to make the changes that he promised is very telling. More specifically, his admission raises suspicion as to whether he will fulfill his current promises, which not only mirror the past promises...

Steve Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota and an outspoken critic of tax and immigration policies, was arrested Saturday afternoon outside a South Jersey high school while protesting Governor Corzine's toll-hike plan. Lonegan said in a telephone interview that he was handcuffed while handing out pamphlets a few minutes before the 2 p.m. start of Corzine's town meeting in Cape May County. Corzine is holding the public events in each of the state's 21 counties to try to sell his financial proposal. Middle Township police declined to comment on the incident. But Lonegan, a Republican who ran in his party's...

A conservative group must abide by campaign finance laws if it wants to run ads promoting its anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton movie, a federal court ruled Tuesday. Citizens United had hoped to run the television advertisements in key election states during peak primary season. The court ruling means the group must either keep its ads off the air or attach a disclaimer and disclose its donors. Lawyers for the group had argued its 90-minute "Hillary: The Movie" was no different from documentaries seen on television news shows "60 Minutes" and "Nova." That prompted skepticism and, at one point, outright laughter from...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The early reviews are in, and three federal judges appeared in agreement Thursday that a movie lambasting Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed an awful lot like a 90-minute campaign advertisement. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, is challenging the nation's campaign finance laws, which require disclaimers on political advertisements and restrict when they can be broadcast. The group argues ''Hillary: The Movie'' and related television advertisements are not political advertising even though the New York senator is in the presidential race. Attorney James Bopp argued that they should be considered ''issue-oriented'' speech because viewers aren't urged to vote...

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FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan 3. -- Just before New Year's Eve, a Fort Worth mother was kicked off the public bus for reading the Bible aloud to her children on the way to church. "What kind of person pulls over public transportation and kicks out a mother and her children for reading their Bible on the way to church?" said Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel for Liberty Legal Institute, the legal organization representing Christine Lutz. "Freedom of religion exists on public transportation just like anywhere else." Christine Lutz was reading the Bible to her children while on the way to church...

Pro-life Women Jailed for Having Begged an Abortionist to Quit a Decade Ago One faces five months in jail while another has been sentenced to serve eight months behind bars. LINCOLN, Nebraska, January 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-life activists Shari McKee and Melissa Abbink were jailed on December 28th, 2007, for speaking to Lincoln abortionist Winston Crabb on two occasions in front of his home 10 years ago. Abbink faces five months in jail while McKee has been sentenced to serve eight months behind bars. According to Operation Rescue, in February, 1998, both were charged with violating the "focused picketing"...

Author and magazine editor Jed Babbin is very concerned about two cases being decided in foreign courts that he believes could have an adverse effect on First Amendment rights in the U.S. Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He explains that a Muslim with possible connections to terrorist funding is using a British court to sue Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author who wrote a book critical of Islam that sold in Britain on the Internet. And in Canada, a similar case has been brought against Mark...

It didn’t attract much notice, but the General Assembly of the United Nations ended the year by passing a disgusting resolution protecting Islam from criticism of its human rights violations. Lots of non-Muslims voted for it – a sign that more and more corrupt Third World governments are identifying with the ideology of Islam, even if they don't accept its doctrines. The resolution goes under the innocuous title "Combating defamation of religions" – but the text singles out "Islam and Muslims in particular". It expresses "deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism".

SPOKANE -- The cross is coming off the official patch worn by Spokane Police Department chaplains after a federal lawsuit prompted changes inside the police chaplains office. The removal of the cross stems from a lawsuit filed against the city last year by a senior police volunteer who argued it was unconstitutional to have a cross on an official City of Spokane insignia. The federal lawsuit, filed by Ray Ideaus, said the patch was illegal and the department's requirement that chaplains adhere to the Judeo / Christian ethic was also unconstitutional because government cannot favor one religion over another. So...

AURORA, Illinois, December 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A YouTube video shows police monitoring a peaceful protest in a Chicago suburb who threatened to arrest a man that was not part of the protest because he was praying while walking his baby in a stroller on the sidewalk near a huge Planned Parenthood abortion facility. Aurora resident Roger Earl was walking his baby and praying from a prayer book on November 17 when police confronted him and told him he couldn't be there. "I wasn't planning to be part of the protest today," said Earl. "I didn't realize that I was...

In the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law. Politicians want to increase penalties for copyright infringement. It's no joke. Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced a sweeping 69-page bill that ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and even creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown. "By providing additional resources for enforcement of intellectual...

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP)-A suburban Atlanta prosecutor has dropped a disorderly conduct charge against an anti-abortion activist who was arrested for driving a truck emblazoned with images of aborted fetuses.... Police had arrested Robert Dean Roethlisberger Jr. 44, of Missouri near the Mall of Georgia the day after Thanksgiving when he refused to remove images on a "Truth Truck," owned by Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group. Police, who said the images were "obscene and vulgar", also impounded the truck and removed the banners. In an e-mail Monday to the Gwinnett Daily Post, Szabo (County Solicitor) said, "To ensure no abridgement of...