Free Republic

An American Hindu organization says that it will renew its pursuit to erect a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman at the Oklahoma State Capitol if residents vote next week to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed. . . "...Hindus would love to request placing a statue of Lord Hanuman, which might become the first Hindu religious monument on public land in USA,” the Universalist Society of Hinduism in Nevada said in a statement on Wednesday.

Just how desperately college and university administrators want to control what students say lest anyone take offense or feel “harassed” is revealed by a policy adopted at Iowa State University (ISU). ISU students are told that they must abide by the school’s policy against “harassment” of anyone in the university community. Students must complete a “training program” consisting of 118 slides online, covering the university’s non-harassment policies and procedures, and then pledge never to violate them. But what if a student thinks that the ISU policy goes way beyond preventing true harassment and amounts to an abridgement of his rights...

Starting on December 12th in Washington, DC, a meeting is being held that jeopardizes freedom of speech as we currently understand it in the United States. The Obama Administration has invited the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation ("OIC," formerly, The Organization of the Islamic Conference) to a meeting of "experts" to discuss the implementation of a UN resolution ostensibly targeting "religious intolerance." Now, even if by combating "religious intolerance" the resolution were just targeting actual violations of freedom of religion (READ: violating rights, not hurting feelings), it still should raise a few eyebrows that the OIC is behind the resolution...

The U.N. General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion, and urging countries to take effective steps “to address and combat such incidents"

The Texas legislature will face a major “mental health” decision when they meet this January. The question will be whether to pass a replacement law for the psychologists’ licensing statute. Their major problem will be passing something -- if they pass anything at all -- that is constitutional under the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. The issue is that the freedom of speech includes the freedom to talk and listen to whomever you’d like about psychological matters -- thoughts, feelings, behavior, perceptions -- including as a paid service. According to the old Texas law, you needed a license...

Many of you know that for more than 4 years, I have been one of the leaders of the team representing religious organizations, mostly Catholic (including Bishop David Zubik, Bishop of Pittsburgh’s Catholic Diocese) in his case which was consolidated in the U.S. Supreme Court with the case brought by The Little Sisters of the Poor and cases brought by others, against the government over Obamacare’s “contraception mandate.” A great number of religious groups of all denominations filed “friend of the Court” briefs supporting our position that while contraception is and could be available to all who choose to use...

Despite the fact that two different courts have settled the matter in terms of the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, we’ve been keeping an eye on the ongoing protests. There’s been more than free speech taking place near the disputed stretch of land where the crews are currently working and previous incidents of violence have had the local authorities on edge. But now they’ve got a new problem to be concerned with. Someone has set fire to several pieces of construction equipment and the damage is in seven figures. (Reuters) Dakota Access LLC, operator of the controversial pipeline carrying...

As the corporate-owned, liberal legacy media continues its “all in” offensive to get Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, elected president, the man she would replace in the oval office is going on the offensive against alternative news sources. “We are going to have to rebuild within this ‘Wild, Wild West’ of information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to,” U.S. president Barack Obama said on Thursday during a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Wait … what? “Curating function?” That sounds an awful lot like censorship to us … While Obama claimed he was not embracing censorship, he said...

The First Amendment is supposed to protect Americans’ right to speak freely against any governmental interference, but in our increasingly politicized climate, we’re finding that regulators who don’t like what you say can and will abuse their power to make you shut up. A Tea Party activist in Nebraska has found that out and so far his efforts at obtaining justice have come to naught. For many years, Robert Bennie had been a successful financial advisor working at the Lincoln, Nebraska firm of Linsco Private Ledger (LPL). LPL’s business falls under the regulatory domain of the Nebraska Department of Banking...

The conviction last week of Ali al-Timimi, an American-born Islamic scholar, on terrorism charges thrust the so-called "Virginia Paintball Jihad" case to the forefront as the federal government's greatest court victory against terrorism. All told, federal prosecutors counted 10 convictions in the case. Al-Timimi's conviction marked the first post-Sept. 11 case in which the government won a terrorism conviction for actions tied to philosophy and words designed to help the enemy, rather than deeds, such as providing money, equipment or actual combat help to that enemy. "Until now these people have escaped. It is a very powerful position to be...

Freedom of the press in the United States is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This clause is generally understood as a means to prevent the government from interfering with the distribution of information and opinions. Nonetheless, freedom of the press is subject to certain restrictions, such as the defamation law. Contents [hide]

<p>ST. LOUIS — Hillary Clinton ended up helping Donald Trump repair some of the damage from his lewd comments about women this weekend when she ran hard left on the Supreme Court — reinforcing the one overriding reason conservative Republicans have for voting for their flawed presidential nominee.</p>

Washington (AFP) - The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity. The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet's so-called "root zone." That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet's "stakeholders" -- engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups. The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to "privatize" the internet, and backers have said it would help...

In their biggest threat yet to conservative media, Democrats on the Federal Election Commission are laying the groundwork to bar companies with even the tiniest foreign ownership from American politics, a move that could ban Fox, the Wall Street Journal and even the New York Times from covering political races or giving endorsements. In a last-minute submission Wednesday, a top Democrat on the evenly split FEC proposed that the Thursday meeting of the commission begin the process to prohibit companies with foreign ownership as small as 5 percent "from funding expenditures, independent expenditures, or electioneering communications." Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub...

"Hazel Juco says she was concerned when she saw discolored water coming from a sink in the girl’s restroom at school. However, she had no idea that she would be suspended because of a picture she took. Juco says she snapped a photo of the water and posted it to her social media pages, hoping that someone would notice and the problem would be fixed. Instead of getting help, she was called to the office."

SNIPPET: "He now likes to be called Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, and his primary interest in this world appears to be Islamic radicalism. Last week, Chesser, 20, posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of "South Park," which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit." SNIPPET: "In a separate post on RevolutionMuslim.blogspot.com, which now serves as the group's main website since RevolutionMuslim.com has been shuttered, Chesser quoted Usama bin Laden when referencing why reactions are required when anyone insults or belittles the Prophet Muhammad. "As Usama bin Laden said with regard to...

Fayetteville, N.C. — A Cumberland County high school teacher has been suspended after he stepped on an American flag as part of a history lesson on Monday. A photo posted on Facebook shows Lee Francis, a history teacher at Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville, standing over an American flag at the front of the class. Students said Francis tried to burn and cut the flag before dropping it on the floor as part of a lesson on the First Amendment. At least two students walked out of the classroom during the demonstration. 7 "I put the flag on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W63TgxJMKZ4 So much for dissent is patriotic

On January 8, 2014, Complainant filed a formal complaint in which he alleged that the Agency subjected him to discrimination on the basis of race (African American) and in reprisal for prior EEO activity when, starting in the fall of 2013, a coworker (C1) repeatedly wore a cap to work with an insignia of the Gadsden Flag, which depicts a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t Tread on Me.” Complainant stated that he found the cap to be racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a “slave trader & owner of slaves.” Complainant also...

The California Legislature passed a controversial bill Wednesday which creates a new crime by criminalizing the distribution of secret recordings of confidential communication with a health care provider. The bill defines confidential communication as “any communication carried on in circumstances that reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto.” It is already illegal in California to make recordings without the consent of all parties. The bill was strongly advocated by Planned Parenthood following a series of undercover videos released last summer by the Center for Medical Progress, which claimed that the...