Free Republic

Is Islam worthy of First Amendment protection? I think it might be time for a Constitutional amendment. Such an amendment would not necessarily have to ban the practice of Islam in the U.S. But certainly, it seems to be time to carve out an exception to the First Amendment so that Islam can be restricted. What better place to get the ball rolling than right here on Free Republic? Am I off base here? Thoughts?

My dear Conservatives: Tonight, as I sit at home sipping some vodka, trying to kill the pain caused by 20 years of wear and tear on my body courtesy of the U.S. Navy, I am watching the debate leading to the vote on Pelosi-care health reform bill. As many of you, I am livid, pissed off, mad and frustrated at the arrogance of our elected officials and their attempts to -once more- subvert the Constitution, impose yet another Federal mandate on the States, and ignore the People's will. I have read some calls to action from people on this forum...

Oh, how the tables have turned.Nervous Democrats are on defense and emboldened Republicans sense opportunity heading into 2010 and the midterm elections. It was just three years ago that the GOP lost the House and Senate as well as governors' races in a cross-country Democratic wave.Now, with most states under their control and comfortable majorities in Congress, Democrats must protect far more seats than Republicans: 19 governors' mansions, 17 Senate seats and as many as 60 House districts in moderate-to-conservative regions and swing-voting areas.At this point, Democrats must do it in a more troubling political environment than in 2006 and...

Part 1: from the 12th essay by "Brutus" from the February 7th & 14th (1788) issues of The New-York Journal Part 2: Taken from the first half of the 14th essay February 28, 1788. In my last, I showed, that the judicial power of the United States under the first clause of the second section of article eight, would be authorised to explain the constitution, not only according to its letter, but according to its spirit and intention; and having this power, they would strongly incline to give it such a construction as to extend the powers of the general...

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Could the health care bill be in real trouble in the House? The Democratic defections are starting to pile up in advance of a vote scheduled for tomorrow on sweeping health reform efforts. (That schedule could slip to Sunday or beyond, if the votes aren’t there.) According to the National Republican Congressional Committee -- which, of course, has an interest in watching this vote particularly closely -- 15 House Democrats and counting are saying publicly that they’ll oppose the measure when it reaches a vote. Democrats can afford only 40 such defections to squeak the...

Please call me skeptical. It's a label I proudly wear. Since my first day of second grade, when I traded my homemade chocolate-chip cookies for a smooth-talking fourth-grader's out-of-ink ballpoint pen, I've been a wary consumer. So, if a presidential candidate tries to hand me a barebones certificate of live birth in lieu of a valid, long-form birth certificate, my skeptical antennae go on alert. I automatically question his motives and whether or not he may be trying to play a little fast and loose with the U.S. Constitution. When that same president purportedly spends over a million dollars on...

Since there was no clue on the website, I had to call. No screwing around and calling the locals here. I called DC.

Washington, Nov 4 - House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed in a letter tonight that the Republican health care plan will lower health care premiums by up to 10 percent and reduce the deficit by $68 billion over 10 years without imposing tax increases on families and small businesses: “When it comes to reforming health care, controlling skyrocketing costs is the American peoples’ top priority.  Now CBO has confirmed that the Republican plan will lower health care costs for American families, and that’s good news for everyone struggling in...

Your U.S. House & Senate have voted themselves $4,700 and $5,300 raises for 2009. 1. They voted to not give you a S.S. cost of living raise in 2010 and 2011. 2. Your Medicaid premiums will go up $285.60 for the 2-years and you will not get the 3% COLA: $660/yr. Your total 2-yr loss and cost is -$1,600 or -$3,200 for husband and wife. 3. Over 2-yrs they ea. get $10,000. 4. Do you feel SCREWED? 5. Will they have your cost of drugs - doctor fees - local taxes - food, etc., increase. NO WAY. They have a...

R. J. PESTRITTO When Barack Obama campaigned for president last fall, he vowed to “change” and even to “remake” America. There was ample evidence at the time that Candidate Obama had been heavily influenced by those with profound contempt for this country and its constitutional form of government. That President Obama has attempted faithfully to follow through on his campaign rhetoric should be surprising to only the cynical among us (who are always surprised to see campaign promises fulfilled), especially if we consider the absence in Congress of any significant check on the more radical aspects of his agenda. Democrats...

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that...

Dear Elected Representative Washington, D.C. Re: CAN YOU HEAR US NOW? You ignored our tee parties, you ignored the 1.7 Million marching on Washington DC on September 12, and you ignored our letters, phone calls and emails. Yesterday despite everything that POTUS and the Democratic Party could do, including pouring 3 times the amount of money into the New Jersey race than the Republican challenger, the electorate said “NO”. “ENOUGH” “STOP THE MADNESS”. C A N Y O U H E A R U S N O W? We are retired with a pension. That means we can dedicate 100%...

Insanity: electing the same kind of politician and expecting a different result. http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com/ "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein Albert Einstein said it. In California, we're living it. The map of California's district ten is an amoeba-shaped tribute to gerrymandering. Proof that when it is in their interest our legislators can put their heads down and color outside the lines. And in district ten they created a masterpiece, invading four separate counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano and Sacramento to gather a voter population with an 18% advantage of registered Democrats to...

Snowe to TPaw: GOP should "borrow" my approach Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is sending a don't-tread-on-me message to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- dismissing his claim that party moderates need to obey the conservative base -- and suggested her critics "borrow" from her middle-of-the-road model. Snowe, often the target of the Republican right flank, turned the argument back on the possible 2012 contender -- saying "litmus tests" of Republican candidates will guarantee the party's position as a two-House minority. Pawlenty, speaking early Monday on MSNBC, said many Republicans were "mad" at Snowe for working with the Democratic majority on health...

Explanatory Statements for the November 3rd, 2009 Constitutional Amendment Election Proposition 1 (HJR 132) HJR 132 would amend the constitution to authorize the legislature to allow a municipality or a county to issue bonds and notes to finance the purchase of buffer areas or open spaces adjacent to military installations. The buffer areas would be used to prevent encroachment or to construct roadways utilities, or other infrastructure to protect or promote the mission of the military installation. The municipality or county may pledge increases in ad valorem tax revenues for repayment of the bonds or notes. The proposed amendment would...

The definition is not very illustrative, so I will give you my thoughts below. RIGHT WING One entry found. Free Dictionary Define Any Word With The Click Of A Button. Free, Fast, and Simple. www.Google.com Main Entry: right wing Function: noun Date: 1856 1 : the rightist division of a group or party 2 : right 8 — right–wing \ˈrīt-ˈwiŋ, -ˌwiŋ\ adjective — right–wing·er \ˈrīt-ˈwiŋ-ər, ˌrīt-\ noun ============================================ We are called right wingers, conservatives, the radical right, sometimes even Nazis and fascists. What is there about the political positions held by those on the political right that gets the leftists,...

Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

Undermine our allies. Embolden our enemies. Diminish our country. If anyone doubted those nine words summed up the Obama Doctrine, look at what the president's team perpetrated last week in Honduras. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and Dan Restrepo, the National Security Council's senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, visited the Honduran capital in Tegucigalpa on Wednesday to compel the country's recalcitrant democrats to make a deal with the man the latter had lawfully removed from the presidency on June 28. It remains to be seen whether, pursuant to this deal, former President Manuel Zelaya will be restored to...

Gibbs Says He Doesn’t Know if White House Has Reviewed Constitutionality of Forcing People to Buy Health Insurance Monday, November 02, 2009 By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that he does not know if White House lawyers have reviewed whether it is constitutional for the federal government to order individuals to buy health insurance and said that the White House is not seriously considering the concerns of people such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) who believe the mandate is not constitutionally justified. This was the second time in two weeks that Gibbs...

U.S. Sovereignty, the U.N. and You. Freedom of Speech under attack; so do something…

GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann has put out a call for a march on Washington DC at noon this Thursday to stop the government health care takeover. Meet her on the steps of the Capitol. More from Tea Party Patriots. A little flashback to get you motivated: *** Obamacare protest posters: Print and bring! *** The SEIU is targeting moderate Democrats over health care. What are you doing to combat the Purple Shirts?

Today we will have a presentation on how North Korean institutions have changed since the death of Kim Il Sung. One particular item, the presenting group this week has looked at is the new North Korean constitution, adopted in late September of this year stands out to highlight how much North Korea has fallen. Below is a rough draft of a translation of the North Korean constitution. There is a section missing on the draft copy of the translation, but I hope to have that updated shortly. But, what is fascinating about looking at the constitution is how far North...

I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! ! The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting...

Well, these videos certainly are igniting the fire within me. How broken and out-of-control can our “government” get? Apparently, the elite have forgotten (or more likely, have never known) about the meaning of the First Amendment to our Constitution, where it clearly states:

President Obama’s highly controversial Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, is concerned about the heterosexual indoctrination of children in our public schools. In his bizarre view: “we all know what’s promoted in our schools: Heterosexuality is promoted in our schools. Every time kids read Romeo and Juliet or they’re encouraged to go to the prom or whatever it is, kids are aggressively recruited to be heterosexual in this country. And you know what, it doesn’t work. The reality is that if schools could affect your sexual orientation there would have been no gay people in the first place. But they’re still...

Conservative activist Bryan Björnson joins Fightin Words to promote The A1S8 Society, an organization committed to restoring the republic by limiting the federal government to its enumerated constitutional powers. Björnson advocates aggressive action to cut the legs out from under runaway spending by repealing the 1943 Current Payments Tax Act, ending payroll deduction and forcing people to confront how much they pay in taxes. What’s the point of the Constitution if the “general welfare” clause gives the government carte blanche to do whatever it pleases? How would the Founding Fathers react to “compassionate conservatism?” If we didn’t see government shrink...

Zelaya threatened to kick the board if not immediately restored Micheletti's supporters are in no hurry to convene Congress to rule on the restitution of the deposed president 9 votes 147 reviews Decrease font fuenteAumentar Will print email JOAQUIM IBARZ | MEXICO (CORRESPONDENT) | 01/11/2009 | Updated at 19:15 pm | International We are where we were. As feared the most skeptical, the agreement just last Friday, is far from solving the crisis in Honduras. Whatever their commitments, each of the parties interpreted the agreement at its convenience. The de facto government supporters are in no hurry to convene Congress...

CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

McNoughton's response to liberal criticisms of "One Nation Under God." Incredible painting. As you move your cursor over the various images, a brief description is revealed on the side panel.

Everything has a fundamental essence, a quality that makes it uniquely itself. Take an orange, for example. It's not only a citrus fruit -- it's an orange-colored citrus fruit. Horticulturists can alter its size, its texture, its sweetness, and even (to a limited extent) its color, but as long as its color is orange, the fruit remains "an orange" because that color is its definition. Change the color, however, and suddenly you have the un-orange, the anti-orange. You have something completely different that no longer contains the essence of the original fruit. Lose the essence and you lose the orange....

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed arguments that there is no Constitutional mandate for requiring people to purchase health insurance. “The President’s opponents are tying themselves in knots over arcane notions of ‘enumerated powers’ and ‘rights supposedly reserved to the people’ when the issue is as simple as can be,” Gibbs asserted. “I’m no Constitutional scholar, but as I read the document, President Obama is the nation’s Supreme Commander. And if the Supreme Commander gives an order, everyone is obliged to obey it—’game over.’” Gibb’s statement was backed up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) who maintains that the issue...

An estimated 200 anti-socialism protesters carried signs and waved at passing motorists for more than two hours yesterday afternoon as they have almost every Saturday for six months at the intersection of Highways K and N in O’Fallon, Mo. Among those participating were three first-generation Americans who took time to share powerful messages every freedom-loving American should hear. Those messages appear in this video.

Show me who he hangs with and I'll show you who (and what) he is. Sammy writes: The White House has been barraged with requests to release the names of its visitors. Today they release the first 500 visits, all from the period of Jan 20-July 31. Some of the Names you can find on the list are Bill Ayers 2x, George Soros 4x, Michael Moore 8X, the head of the ACORN affiliated Union the SEIU Andrew Stern 20x,Jeremiah Wright, GE/NBC head Jeff Immelt 5x, Jesse Jackson 6x, John Edwards2x, Al Sharpton 2x, and of course television goddess Oprah Winfrey....

Hey Staten Island! Wake up! Staten Island is one of NYC's five boroughs -- home to cops, firefighters and a mix of hard working blue collar and white collar families. Staten Island was hit real bad on 911. They have no clue how dirty the Working Families Party is. But we do. The Democrats are a racketeering organization using their proxies like the Left wing Working Families Party (how ironic), ACORN, and community organizing organizations to steal elections and usurp the will of free men. (more here) The NY Post came out with this story on the Working Families Party...

In American history, the Continental Congress was the means by which our Founding Fathers formally reacted to the abuses of power they endured under their British sovereigns. Before American independence was declared, it was through Continental Congress that the need was determined. Two-hundred and thirty-five years later, a coalition of liberty groups is resurrecting this historic forum to challenge the ever-expanding authority of the same federal government their forebears went on to create. In a video proclaiming their intentions, a representative cites the Constitution’s provision for citizens to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The “servant government” is...

There is an ugliness in America, never before seen, and I am not talking about Pelosi’s botox or Biden’s hair plugs, I am talking about the manner in which our government is treating its citizens. B. Hussein Obama demands a takeover of the health care industry and despite wide public outcry against it, Pelosi and Dingy Harry push for obamacare. Why? Because the bill does away with our rights and abolishes private insurance. Effective in 2013, after the next presidential election, private insurance policies are illegal. States can “opt-out” of obamacare, but they will still have to pay for it,...

The OPTION Act The Offering Patients True and Individualized Options Now Act You can follow the links below for information... Click Here for a summary of bill, and scroll down for the actual bill in PDF...

Sometimes I worry that our country will become more like the former Soviet Union. Americans will wait in lines for hours in order to receive bread for the week. I wonder what it would be like to run out of toilet paper and not be able to run to the store to stock up on what I grew up believing were necessities. Mostly, I am angered that I'm living paycheck to paycheck...tethered to a house not worth the mortgage I own, unable to advance my earning potential because there is no free money for a middle-aged white person who gives...

This is Part II of a three part series. (you can find part one HERE) In 1992 Americans were told, “It’s the economy, stupid.” In recent years Americans have slowly begun to wake up and realize that no matter what the issue; economy, free speech, taxes, energy, private property, etc, that it all boils down to the Constitution. It is the US Constitution that is the key to all these issues, and protecting the rights of American citizens. Last week we talked about what made us, mainstream. For me, it boiled down to faith, family, and the founding of our...

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. —Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Through a combination of ineptitude, greed, and design, our “representatives” in Washington...

This press release is fresh - not up on his website yet ... Pelosi’s Halloween Healthcare Horrors: Death for the Baby Boomers, Jail for the Middle Class, Free Healthcare for Illegal Aliens By Congressman John Carter Today House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the long-awaited healthcare “reform” bill in the House of Representatives. It is a horrific assault on the health, economy, and freedoms of this country, especially our senior citizens who rely on Medicare. It was created behind closed doors, with Republicans, who represent nearly half the country, literally locked out of the room by Democrats. Democrat staffers had the...

Whole industries and banks are biting the dust; unemployment lingers close to double-digits; government deficits rise like a mountain of nuclear waste; the communist Chinese are buying up our debt in anticipation of God knows what kind of future demands upon us; and more soldiers die needlessly while the President dithers with his golf game. Purely mad social engineers -- Obama, Pelosi & Reid -- are on a determined march toward nationalizing one-sixth of the entire American economy. Their scheme will have far-reaching effects on 100 percent of the men, women and children in this Country. The whole idea is...

It's Alive! End-of-Life Counseling In Health Bill By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR WASHINGTON – It's alive. The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to "death panels" for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday. The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death. For years, federal laws and policies have encouraged Americans to think ahead about end-of-life decisions, and make their wishes known in advance through living wills and...

Judiciary: The nominee for a California federal district court is an ACLU activist and another advocate for the empathy standard of jurisprudence. He also has a problem with "America the Beautiful." The nomination of Edward Chen is the latest in a series of nominations of people who have no particular fondness for the traditions of law and justice. These nominees see racism everywhere, and believe the courts should be used as instruments of social justice and not to discern the intent of the Founding Fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution. They believe their "life experience" should be the final arbiter...

By Selwyn Duke NewsWithViews.com thelastcrusade.orgContrary to what my title indicates, I probably judge Barack Obama more harshly than most reading this. I don’t think he is just a misguided ideologue or merely a creature of expediency. I believe, practically speaking, that he is an evil man. That is to say, while he is largely ignorant like so many others, he has developed an affinity for evil. He mistakes it for good. Yet, Obama doesn’t alarm me as much as the average American. To explain why, I’ll present something Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero said 2000 years ago...

I was tweeted a news story this weekend and read with absolute astonishment about a petition started by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich that aims to declare healthcare a civil right. Such a foolish endeavor reveals a profound misunderstanding as to our founding documents and the nature of our human rights. The Honorable Mr. Kucinich is not alone in this, nor is it something confined to the progressive left. He can get away with this because we have forgotten our history and don’t look to the Founding Fathers to understand why things are the way they are. People of all political...

Thank you for this informative email (JPFO alert 10/26/09). Now I have a question to ask you. Are you aware that the BATFE has for several years been aggressively offering eTrace to local law enforcement agencies? They have the agency sign a memorandum of agreement and then the agency can run traces on any firearm they wish. The catch is that the agency has to agree to run a trace on ALL CRIME GUNS. The MOU defines a CRIME GUN as: "The parties agree that a 'crime gun' is defined as "any firearm that is illegally possessed, used in a...

That’s the title of a new article in the Columbia Law Review (the link is just to an abstract, since no PDF is available). The law review asked me whether I could write a commentary for its online supplement (the Sidebar), and I did, here, under the title The First and Second Amendments; the author’s response to my response is here. Here’s the text of my article (for the footnotes, see the version I link to above): I. The Supposed Analogy to Obscenity Analogies between the First Amendment and the Second (and comparable state constitutional protections) are over 200 years...

The Democrats have beaten the Republicans to court in NY-23, obtaining an order to show cause that requires the impounding of voting machines for what is expected to be another tight congressional special election. "Most of the time, you don't bring this until the day after the election, and then only if you think the race will be close," said attorney Frank Hoare, whom I reached on his cell phone as he was driving back to Albany after filing the order in Elizabethtown. "The Republicans usually play games and start the action the day of the election; in an effort...

Plan from the radical left wing is foiled in Honduras The plan was not linked with the death of a colonel of the Armed Forces and the nephew of President Micheletti and the kidnapping of the Minister of Defense, but not rule out that these have to do with the political crisis Tegucigalpa, Honduras . The National Police reported an alleged plan from "radical" left to kill and kidnap businessmen, policemen and armed forces members. This was announced by the National Police Commissioner, Danilo Orellana, who told HRN radio that seized and are holding a plan "that they had and...