Free Republic

FLY OUR FLAG HIGH/div> By Michelle Malkin   ·   April 06, 2006 09:11 AM ***scroll for updates...reader photo submissions...Senate immigration legislation developments...Denver pro-patriotism rally tomorrow...a judge forced to recuse himself for leading the Pledge of Allegiance...Mexican flag-flyers defiant...*** ***1135am EST newsflash: cloture vote on Specter amnesty amendment...immigration deal announced*** It's Take an American Flag to Work Day. Fly one high and proud. Printable flag here. Here's the poster I have on my home office wall: Show your colors. Track back or e-mail your favorite American flag photos. *** Reader Paige D. sends her favorite: Charles Ryder at Age of Hooper...

HESPERIA — While thousands of Hispanic students spent the week facing suspension for walking out of class, now Caucasian students around the country are being handed the same penalty for waving the American flag. Flaunting the American flag is precisely what 13-year-old Cameron Miles did at Ranchero Middle School on Friday. Wearing two shirts, one with the American flag, school officials said he removed the one displaying his patriotism and began waving it at a group of Hispanic students on campus. “His friends began to hoist him on their shoulders so he could be more predominately displayed when the proctor...

More than two dozen students walked out of Skyline High School Friday morning to protest what they say is a ban that doesn't allow the American flag to be flown on school grounds. Several students said that they were upset that Mexican flags can be waved around but that American flags couldn't. They said that school officials confiscated their American flags because it has become inflammatory because of recent immigration issues. "When the immigration laws came out we noticed that a lot of Hispanics were waving Mexican flags and what we were thinking to ourselves is like, isn't the immigration...

Tensions over immigration reform heightened in the Phoenix area's East Valley Thursday when students raised a Mexican flag over Apache Junction High School — and then other students yanked it down and burned it. --Snip-- School flagpoles have been lightning rods across the country this week, including an incident in which a Houston high-school principal was disciplined after he flew a Mexican flag underneath his campus' U.S. and state flags. A new political awareness among students has also been grabbing attention, as thousands have walked out on classes to join rallies in Phoenix and elsewhere. More than 100 students from...

California protest defines roles of each group Two groups arrived to face off in Vista, California recently. A group affiliated with the Minutemen Project chose a corner of a busy street where day laborers congregate to hold a protest of illegal immigration. Another group opposing the Minutemen, and thus supporting illegal immigration, protested in an area around the corner, with sheriff's deputies in riot gear staged between the two groups. The groups were roughly equal in size, although the minutemen were spread out and right on the curb, while the counter protesters took up less than half the curb space...

PLYMOUTH (PA)- A 31-year-old man was sentenced to probation after he tore down his family's American flag then passed out on it in his front yard. David Allen Young, 33 Elm St., plead guilty Wednesday to desecration of a flag, a misdemeanor in Pennsylvania. He was sentenced to six months probation. "It wasn't like I wanted to hurt the flag," Young said in an interview. "It was a rage thing. I really do love my country." The entanglement with the flag began a hot June night after a drunken fight with his family, he said. The feud moved to the...

Should school children pledge allegiance in the morning? ... ... remarks: What, my daughter will be required to pledge such thing, everyday? Yes, it's brainwashing school children; you are absolutely right. The inserting of "under God” to the pladge is a product of McCarthy era, which is the darkest age in US history. Meanwhile “In God we trust” was recognized as “National Motto”. I think Bush presidency shares more with McCarthy era than Iraqi war shares with Vietnam War. My only hope is, evangelicals will shoot in their foot when they get an upper hand. I did a small survey...

Like the slime-creature from a '50s science-fiction film (“Kill it, before it multiplies!”), federal judges are seemingly unstoppable – a malignant, mutating entity determined to conquer the planet. Which is another way of saying that another activist judge has decided that God is unconstitutional. Judge Lawrence K. Karlton (not surprisingly, a Carter-nominee) based his opinion on a fiction – which, come to think of it, isn’t surprising, either. Karlton said he was bound by precedent to find that recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “one nation under God” violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The precedent Karlton...

SAN FRANCISCO — Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (search) in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The opinion issued Sept. 14, 2005 may be accessed here.

Just heard on top of the hour on Fox News Radio

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Wednesday it is unconstitutional for public school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." Karlton said he's bound by precedent set by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in 2002 that it was unconstitutional for the Pledge to be recited in public schools. The Supreme Court threw out that case, ruling that Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow had no standing...

This photo provided by Jeep shows 140 vehicles positioned by Jeep owners in the form of an American flag Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005, in Mount Pocono, Pa., to promote the National Anthem Project, a national effort to re-teach Americans the words to 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' Two out of three Americans do not know the words to the National Anthem, according to a Harris Poll survey. The flag, measuring 73 feet wide by 191 feet long, was created to celebrate the first year of this multi-year national education initiative of which Jeep is a national sponsor. (AP Photo/Jeep, Stuart Ramson)

This is what the homosexual movement (and the sign company, ClearChannel) thinks of the American Flag. This advertises a pornographic homosexual website for "hooking up." But it's more than that. We warned you: Legally sanctioned gay "marriage" is the green light to push this in your face -- in the schools, government, businesses, and the public square. This is also about desensitizing you and your family to homosexuality. When will you and your children drive by this in your neighborhood? This is just the beginning. The sign company (making money thru social decay): Clear Channel Communications Stoneham, Massachusetts (Regional Office)...

Rosen: Fireproofing the flag July 8, 2005 Linda Grist Cunningham is the executive editor of the Rockford (Illinois) Register Star, a Gannett newspaper owned by the publishers of USA Today. She's angry with members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats, who voted in favor of House Resolution 10, which reads as follows: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit physical desecration of the flag of the United States." Cunningham pledged that, "If the U.S. Senate follows its silly siblings in the House of Representatives and votes for a ban on burning the American flag, I'm going to...

War protester sets flag on fire MURRIETA: Lee Henry Vollick, 19, is attacked by concertgoers, then arrested, his mother says. 11:14 PM PDT on Sunday, July 3, 2005 By SARAH BURGE / The Press-Enterprise MURRIETA - After a 19-year-old war protester set fire to an American flag at the Murrieta city birthday bash Saturday evening, angry bystanders attacked him before he could say a word, his mother said Sunday. Police said Lee Henry Vollick, of Murrieta, set an American flag ablaze around 7:55 p.m. in the middle of a crowded concert at the California Oaks Sports Park. The protester's mother,...

Russian Radicals Mark 4th July by Burning U.S. Flag MosNews Activists of the Russian National Bolshevik and Communist Youth parties burnt the U.S. flag in front of the U.S. consulate in the city of Ekaterinburg on July 4, Interfax reported Monday. About 30 people picketed the building, holding up banners calling for Americans to leave Russia. At the end of the rally they pierced an American flag made of paper with a sword and burnt it. The demonstration was in protest at U.S. policy, a senior member of the local Communist Youth organization Ludmila Zhuravleva told Interfax, without elaborating. “The...

When Beverly Crissman reported for work at the American Legion Post in Sturgis, Mich., on June 13—the day before Flag Day—she noticed something odd: Two American flags usually flying out front were missing. Later that morning, a co-worker discovered the charred remains of the flags on the east side of the building. The banners had been torn down and burned the night before. Marty Justis of the national office of the American Legion, the nation's largest veterans organization, told WORLD that though the Michigan incident isn't common, it is emblematic of the need to protect the American flag. The Legion...

I am abnormal and wish to explain. I am abnormal, according to leftist extremist Reggie Rivers, who writes a column in the Denver Post, because I believe in defending (and have defended with my life, as have millions more true Americans) the flag which represents the principles for which so many Americans have died. Frankly, I am proud to be so abnormal. In his latest anti-American tirade in the way-to-the-left Post, "Radical Reggie" continues his never-ending attacks on America by stating that "the flag is not without its problems." People like Osama bin Laden love it when Americans attack their...

The Stars and Stripes began its history as the symbol of thirteen colonies who picked a fight over principles that endure today, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights like Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Some years later, Francis Scott Key immortalized what he called the “star spangled banner” as a symbol of perseverance and bravery. It didn’t take long for another nation to acknowledge the Stars and Stripes as the symbol of a free and independent nation. In February 1778, John Paul...

The University of Oklahoma Law Center -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Star Spangled Banner -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (The Defense of Fort McHenry) September 20, 1814 By Francis Scott Key -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and...

Traditionalists say I was born of a woman's hand -- fashioned from bits of colored cloth by a seamstress in a small house in Philadelphia, a year after the new country was born. Historians are less certain of my origin. Yet, no one doubts my existence. I was created out of necessity to serve as the emblem of a people whose experiment in nationhood was as unique as the arrangement of my stars and stripes. I have proved my adaptability to change. I've accommodated growth. I've stood up to time and troubles. I fluttered in the Fall air with...

This morning I was a caller on Lowell Green's radio show (CFRA, Ottawa, Canada). He is a right-wing host and a strong supporter of the United States. The question on the table this morning was "Are Canadians more apathetic about their government than Americans. If so, why?" So, as always when the issue of the differences between the two countries and our relationship comes up, I had to call. :) I said, "Canadians have never had to fight for anything. They didn't have to fight for their independence from England; they don't have to work for their national defense because...

GELNHAUSEN, Germany — Although it is a bedroom community, Coleman Barracks isn’t swaddled in seclusion. The green, fenced-in housing area borders the main street running through the small German city of Gelnhausen. There are all the telltale signs of an American military community: apartment blocks, gate guards, U.S. plated vehicles and a pedestrian stoplight for the school directly across the street. “People know we are here, and have been for many years,” said Staff Sgt. Shawn Watson. Yet when school started last fall, the new principal believed a lower profile was in order. Gelnhausen Elementary School practically sits on the...

It will come as no surprise to many that much of what appears to be ailing the city of Los Angeles can be found at City Hall. A case can be made from all parts of the political spectrum that city officials often just can't seem to get things done right, whether it's paying attention at meetings or not sounding like rookie politicians every time there's a budget question. However, those looking for a more subtle, yet just as discouraging, clue to our city's problems need look no farther than the Spring Street entrance to City Hall. If you stand...

Was feeling awash in pride for my country this evening. Happened to be listening to a little Johnny Cash, and though you might find his 'Ragged Old Flag' inspiring. Apologies for terrible HTML formatting. ------------------------------------------------------- I walked through a county courthouse squareOn a park bench an old man was sittin' there.I said, 'your old courthouse is kinda run down'.He said 'naw, it'll do for our little town. I said 'your old flagpole has leaned a little bit'and that's a ragged old flag you got hangin on it' He said 'Have a seat', and I sat down'Is this the first time...

Businesses complain about town code that regulates size and number of American flags David Oudshoorn, who flies about a half-dozen American flags in front of the Shell station in Hampton Bays, may soon run into problems with the law. It could come in the form a new Southampton town code that limits businesses to displaying no more than two American flags, none larger than 60 square feet.

Sonoma Valley school officials relented Thursday, agreeing to add an American flag to the senior class portrait. The decision followed a week of controversy and angry protest after school officials barred the flag and any other props from Sonoma Valley High School's annual senior portrait. A confrontation ensued after students defied the order during the Oct. 13 photo session. Two students were suspended for yelling and cursing at a vice principal, school officials said. The uproar attracted the attention of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who met with a group of the students last weekend and took up their cause....

Conservative icon Newt Gingrich met with a group of rebellious Sonoma high school students Saturday, saying he was proud of them for defying a ban on flags in their senior class photo.

The flag should be raised briskly and lowered slowly and ceremoniously. Ordinarily it should be displayed only between sunrise and sunset. It should be illuminated if displayed at night.So here's my question:I just installed a nice large American flag on a pole and bracket outside my apartment window sill (hopefully I will have moved by the time too many useful idiots complain here in the PRNYC). It's not the most robust bracket and pole; I added a bolt through the mated two pole ends, as well as a "lanyard" with 50 lb test going to an eye hook on my...

Under gray skies and with his voice cracking, Spirit of '76 Association President Paul Lamberton said Thursday that his group's giant American flag, paint-bombed while on display at the Lobero Theatre, cannot be saved. The news of the $5,000 flag's impending retirement came hours after Young America's Foundation officials found paint splattered on the American flag at the nonprofit's Reagan Ranch Center on State Street. Police have no suspects in either attack and are asking the public's help in their investigation. Meanwhile, a tearful Mr. Lamberton raised the reward his group is offering to $3,000 and urged the "anonymous creatures...

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation." For over 200 years there has been debate on what this first flag design looked like and where it was originally flown. Unfortunately, fact mixed with legend has clouded the issue and even at the present day, there is no definitive answer. Recently, historians have generally conceded that credit for the design proposal of the first...

The headline in the Washington Times said, "U.S. Athletes Told to Cool It At Olympics." I couldn't believe my eyes. According to various news reports, a paid consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee named Mike Moran is advising our athletes to tone down their enthusiastic display of patriotism at this summer's Olympics in Greece for fear of provoking or taunting other countries who might not like us very much. "We're not the favorite kid in the world right now", conceded Bill Martin, the USOC's acting president. "We are sensitive...to jingoism in its raw sense. That is why we are sending...

Forget Janet Jackson: The Veterans of Foreign Wars is peeved at Kid Rock . The VFW is upset that media outlets are ignoring the poncho Rock wore during the Super Bowl (search) halftime show, which was made by cutting a slit in an American flag. Rock later tossed the flag into the crowd. The VFW's commander in chief, Edward Banas Senior, says Rock's outfit was "in poor taste and extremely disrespectful." Banas lamented that the NFL, MTV and CBS have issued apologies for Justin Timberlake's ripping Janet Jackson's clothes but have said nothing about Rock.

While Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake's stunt that closed the Super Bowl halftime show continues to fuel a national backlash, the Veterans of Foreign Wars is criticizing another halftime performer. Kid Rock donned what appeared to be an American flag slit in the middle so he could wear it as poncho for his part of the show Sunday, and the VFW is outraged. "That is just blatant, disgusting disrespect for the flag," national spokesman Jerry Newberry told the St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday. "We have people dying for that flag right now, and that just goes beyond any realm of...

<p>Moderator note: Do not post the photo, links are fine.</p> <p>Did anyone else see if Justin Timberlake pulled off Janet Jackson's top?</p>

THE D.C. SNIPER'S JIHAD By MICHELLE MALKIN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email Archives Print Reprint December 10, 2003 -- FROM the moment John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested in the Beltway-area sniper case last fall, the media and Muslim activists wanted us to believe that the serial killings had absolutely nothing to do with Islamic terrorism: * CNN downplayed Muhammad's religious conversion - calling him by his old name, John Allen Williams, when his identity was first revealed. Malvo was cast as a clueless dupe with no true convictions. * Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) argued: "There...

The frontman of Jethro Tull has apologised for remarks made in a newspaper interview that seemingly criticised displays of the American flag. In a posting on Jethro Tull's Web site, Ian Anderson further explained what he meant when he told the Asbury Park Press newspaper in New Jersey that "I hate to see the American flag hanging out of every bloody station wagon, out of every SUV, every little Midwestern house in some residential area." Anderson said his concern was not specifically displays of the US flag but "the flag-waving mind-set" across the world. He said he regretted the tone...

Flag is Divisive in post 9/11 World. It's no great skill, but I work hard at listening to ranting liberals without interrupting. I suppress my urge to correct them. I clench my teeth and shut up. And it's harder than you might imagine. These people are my friends and sometimes my family, nice folks from whom I do not want to become estranged. But the stuff I hear shocks me. One pal confides that he has evolved a hatred of the American flag, since 9/11. At first, he says, the overt flag waiving that popped up after the terrorist attack...

A photo of several Grand Junction High School students protesting Colorado's mandatory Pledge of Allegiance law by greeting the Stars and Stripes with a Nazi salute has angered several members of the city's Jewish community who say the action is a form of ethnic intimidation. "This is not an expression of free speech," Aaron Long said in a letter to the high school principal. "Rather it is intimidation and a direct affront to individuals of certain ethnic groups. The behavior must not be tolerated in a public institution." Sophomore Had Stine, 15, said he did not intend to offend Jewish...

<p>All right, University of Central Florida students and faculty: Start behaving yourselves or I'll turn this column right around.</p>

Today: September 16, 2003 at 3:48:35 PDT Sept. 11 Memorial Flag in Colo. Burned ASSOCIATED PRESS FRISCO, Colo. (AP) - An American flag placed atop a mountain peak in a national forest as a memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks was torched, authorities said. Summit County deputies were investigating a report that a hiker found a note on the 13,589-foot snowcapped summit claiming responsibility for the fire, sheriff's spokeswoman Jill Berman said Monday. The burned flag was found Sunday. The FBI was notified because the flag was in the White River National Forest, Berman said. The flag...

(CNSNews.com) - The first American flag in a Florida state university classroom was unfurled at the University of Central Florida in Orlando on Friday afternoon as a result of an effort led by conservative students. "This is a great day for UCF students," said Heather Smith, president of Rebuilding on a Conservative Kornerstone, or ROCK, a student-based group that has been working for months to have the flags placed in the school's classrooms. Smith said it is national emblem of freedom and liberty. However, critics of the plan said the American flags would be used to show political support for...

Veteran fights for front yard flag (CNN) --Former Marine George Andres is in danger of losing his home. His homeowner's association prohibits flagpoles and he flies an American flag in his front yard. The courts have agreed and say the association can foreclose on his home to collect legal fees. CNN "Moneyline" anchor Lou Dobbs discussed the case with Andres. DOBBS: You've been fighting this for how long now? ANDRES: Since 1999. DOBBS: And what is the position of the homeowner's association? Why is it that a flag is so detrimental to their community? ANDRES: Well, first they said that...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN JULY 27, 2003 21:05:25 ET XXXXX BUSH IN FLAG FLAP George W. Bush has hit controversy as a picture has surfaced showing the president signing a well-wisher's hand-held American flag--a direct violation of the Federal Flag Code . According to the law, "[t]he flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature." The President was meeting and greeting supporters on July 23, 2003 at Beaver Aerospace and Defense in Livonia, Michigan where the...

These are a very special kind of American. They see themselves as “true patriots.” They see themselves as exercising their constitutional rights every time they open up their mouths. They live in San Francisco and they live in Oregon. Places that are still within the present borders of the United States, but not necessarily for long. The people of the town of Ashland, Oregon are very upset that the state of Oregon has a law that makes it mandatory for every school in the state to have a flagpole and to fly the American flag. The people of Ashland Oregon,...

I'm just coming back from Normandy and still have to unpack, but I wanted to offer you a new game to play, particularly if you're in for a D-Day tour this summer. If you planned it, you may want to cancel your visit to the Musée Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandie (Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy) in Bayeux. Unless you would like to play this game, I told you about. It's called: "Guess what's missing at a museum dedicated to the Battle of Normandy, 1944?" Let's see if you're as good at this game as the dissident...

After two years of periodic controversy concerning flying additional American flags in downtown Amherst, the issue is back in the town's spotlight. What began as a typically mild discussion between Amherst Select Board members and residents on Monday, April 7, turned into a heated debate with residents calling members names, swearing at the board and interrupting the board members. "At a time like this, it's easy to be torn apart," said Vietnam War veteran Gordo Fletcher-Howell regarding the escalating controversy regarding the added flags, particularly during wartime. The issue is whether the Amherst Select Board should uphold a town bylaw...

Portland Fire Bureau officials Monday ordered U.S. flags removed from downtown fire engines, concerned that their presence might provoke dangerous confrontations with antiwar demonstrators. "This policy will continue until we no longer have sustained close contact interaction with protesters and demonstrators," Deputy Chief Gary Warrington wrote in a memo to the city's three downtown companies. "Protesters have threatened our personnel and are burning flags in the street," the memo said. "We do not want extremists attacking our apparatus or our personnel." The order immediately proved incendiary with firefighters, who angrily complained. "Taking the flag down hits a lot of nerves...

Check this site out: http://home.att.net/~Poofcat/pledgejw.html