Free Republic

Critics are calling the practice the new "debtors' prison" -- referring to the jails that flourished in the U.S. and Western Europe over 150 years ago. Before the time of bankruptcy laws and social safety nets, poor folks and ruined business owners were locked up until their debts were paid off. Reforms eventually outlawed the practice. But groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union say it's been reborn in local courts which may not be aware it's against the law to send indigent people to jail over unpaid fines and fees -- or they...

The New Mexico and Texas chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union are suing border officers and a hospital after they allegedly subjected a U.S. citizen to numerous invasive body cavity searches without a warrant. Included in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in West Texas are four U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and the University Medical Center of El Paso, among others. The lawsuit alleges CBP officers frisked and strip-searched a 54-year-old woman and then delivered her in handcuffs to the hospital, where doctors observed a bowel movement and performed invasive rectal and vaginal probes, among...

A small Missouri town was sued on Monday by a homeless couple who are accusing it of violating their constitutional rights by forcing them to leave because they stood on a street corner holding a sign seeking assistance. Brandalyn Orchard and Edward Gillespie, who were holding a sign that read "Traveling. Anything helps. God Bless," obeyed police who ordered them to leave Miner, Missouri, on September 26, according to the federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on the couple's behalf. Officers, who showed them copies of ordinances against vagrancy, begging and loitering, told the couple they would...

Yellowstone's grizzlies, now classified as a threatened species, were briefly removed from protected status by the federal government in 2007, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the outsized, hump-shouldered bears had made a healthy comeback. At the time, the number of grizzlies in the region had exceeded the government's recovery goal of 500 bears, the government said. But conservationists successfully challenged the de-listing in court, arguing that the government discounted climate changes ... On Wednesday, members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee sought to reverse that decision, recommending a new de-listing after reviewing a report suggesting Yellowstone's...

The University of the Incarnate Word is a highly-rated Catholic college in San Antonio, Texas. It is hardly a hot bed of campus violence. When senior Robert Cameron Redus was pulled-over last Friday by campus police for “erratically speeding,” it is unlikely he had any clue of how tragically the stop would end. The campus police department contends Redus, an honors student set to graduate in May, grabbed the officer’s steel baton during a struggle. Not in dispute, however, is that Redus was shot five times by the officer, at close range, leaving him dead and the University scrambling to...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleging that ethical directives issued by the bishops are responsible for negligence in the care of a woman treated in a Michigan Catholic hospital. Tamesha Means, who reportedly suffered damaging infections during a troubled pregnancy that ended in miscarriage, should have been advised to abort the child, the ACLU argues. “It is important to note at the outset that the death of any unborn child is tragic, and we feel deeply for any mother who suffers such...

The head of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is awaiting reply from Hampshire College to his letter deploring the college’s decision to cancel a performance by an Afrobeat band because some deemed the band “too white” to play African music. Shokazoba, an Afrobeat ensemble that blends jazz, funk and African rhythms, was scheduled to play on Halloween at Hampshire. However, the band was canceled after some students voiced concerns that the band, which has a black singer but is predominantly white, was appropriating black music. The college’s Hype Committee broke the news on its Facebook, saying:...

As Christmas nears, two local school districts find themselves being drawn unwillingly into the battle against religion in the public square — but both districts maintain that allowing students to participate in traditional Christmas concerts does not violate anyone’s rights. Choirs from Glacier, Flathead and Whitefish high schools will perform as planned today and Friday during the “Peace on Earth Community Christmas Celebration” despite receiving requests from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union of Montana to cancel. The event in question is billed as a celebration of “the birth of our savior Jesus Christ,” featuring hundreds...

Pro-life demonstrators in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Lansing, Mich., Dec 3, 2013 / 05:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A lawsuit charging that the U.S. bishops’ ethical standards for hospitals caused negligent care of a pregnant woman wrongly claims that abortion was medically necessary, a doctor and professor of medicine has said. “Abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother,” said Dr. Brian C. Calhoun, a professor and vice-chair in the obstetrics and gynecology department at West Virginia University-Charleston. Calhoun, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, rejected the deliberate killing of an unborn patient in a medical emergency....

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a sweeping federal lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over its ethical guidelines for Roman Catholic hospitals, arguing the directives were to blame for negligent care of a pregnant woman who went into early labor and whose baby died within hours.The ACLU alleges the bishops were negligent because their religious directives prevented Tamesha Means from being told that continuing her pregnancy posed grave risks to her health and her child was not likely to survive. She was treated at Mercy Health Muskegon, a Catholic hospital in Michigan."It's not just about one woman,"...

The American Civil Liberties Union and its Michigan affiliate are suing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops charging that its anti-abortion religious dictates resulted in a Michigan woman’s dangerous miscarriage. The ACLU filed the lawsuit Friday on behalf of Tamesha Means, a pregnant woman whose water broke 18 weeks into her pregnancy and who sought medical aid at Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, Mich., a Catholic hospital. According to the ACLU, while Means’ baby had virtually no chance of survival, the hospital sent her home twice without offering termination as an option, “even though [Means] was in excruciating pain; there...

Although conspiracy theories abound as to who orchestrated President John F. Kennedy’s murder 50 years ago, there is little doubt regarding who actually pulled the trigger and shot the 35th president: left-wing radical Lee Harvey Oswald. He was involved with a number of liberal causes and had been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union; he had officially joined just weeks before he took Kennedy’s life, and when questioned after murdering Kennedy, Oswald specifically asked for an ACLU attorney. Savodink said that Oswald’s fellow marines called him “Oswaldskovich” because of his fascination with communism and the U.S.S.R. Whatever theories...

Where is the slack for Martin Richard, youngest victim of the jihad bombers? How about cutting some slack to his younger sister Jane, who has undergone no fewer than 11 operations on her left leg, which she lost below the knee? We demand slack for the hundreds of victims of the devout Muslims who blew up the Boston Marathon. The ACLU is a dangerous and depraved organization whose mission by objective is to destroy these United States. Huge props to the judge that booted the litigious jihad jackboots from weighing in on jihad Tsarnaev’s trial. ACLU fights for Boston...

A Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Christian pastor and school bus driver was terminated last week after he violated two warnings issued by the school district and the subcontractor company that he worked for in which he was asked to refrain from leading students in prayer. George Nathaniel, who pastors the Elite Church of the First Born and Grace Missionary Baptist Church, received separate complaint letters from the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district and Durham School Services, a school bus operating company, in addition to his reassignment for different bus routes. However, Nathaniel dismissed their reprimands and continued his daily prayers during the children's school ride....

A federal trial to determine whether Wisconsin's controversial voter identification law discriminates against minorities is scheduled to begin on Monday in a case seen as a possible precedent for similar laws in other states. Voter ID laws - which require government-issued identification before voting - have become a political and racial flashpoint across the United States. Democrats generally oppose the measures and many Republicans back them. The trial in Milwaukee combines two federal lawsuits filed on behalf of dozens of individual voters by several organizations including the League of United Latin American Citizens, Milwaukee Area Labor Council and the American...

Gun rights groups are throwing their weight behind efforts on Capitol Hill to rein in the National Security Agency (NSA). The National Rifle Association (NRA) is among a number of groups that have signed on to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit against the secretive government agency. The NRA has also endorsed bipartisan legislation proposed by House and Senate Judiciary committees that would end the NSA’s collection of bulk phone records. Another Second Amendment advocate, the Gun Owners of America, expects to back NSA legislation as well. “There are issues that, maybe at first blush, wouldn't seem like a...

DENVER (CBS4) – There’s more controversy over legalized marijuana after some members of the Denver City Council want to limit open consumption. Marijuana advocates say the city may be violating the spirit of Amendment 64. Under the proposal smoking marijuana at a park or other public places could lead a fine of almost $1,000 and a year in jail. But what’s causing alarm to marijuana smokers is how Denver might be defining how much is too much in the privacy of a person’s property. People were passing out free joints in Civic Center Park last month and Denver Mayor Michael...

Early Monday morning it was revealed supervisors within the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms have censored whistleblower John Dodson by denying an outside work application to publish a book about Operation Fast and Furious. The family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is expressing their support for Dodson and want his book to be published. "The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry stands behind ATF whistleblower John Dodson and supports his attempts to publish his manuscript pertaining to the flawed gun trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. Recently, ATF officials told Dodson that...

An Ohio school district has agreed to keep a portrait of Jesus Christ off school property and pay a $95,000 fine in the face of legal pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union. The Jackson City School District, located in Jackson, reached a deal on Friday after the ACLU, along with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, sued the district in February, citing “unconstitutional” actions and charging that students and visitors to the school “will continue to suffer permanent, severe and irreparable harm and injury,” according to the lawsuit. The picture had been hanging in Jackson’s high school since 1947...

That was awkward. In the clearest sign yet of the potent effect of the government shutdown on the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli avoided being photographed with Ted Cruz at a gala they headlined here Saturday night—even leaving before the Texas senator rose to speak. Backstage, a source said, Cuccinelli urged Cruz to work with Democrats to end the federal shutdown. But he did not make that point, or even acknowledge Cruz, in short public comments to some 1,100 social conservatives. Cruz has become the face of GOP intransigence, and the conservative attorney general’s effort to distance himself from...