Free Republic

A while back in (December, 1906) prominent members of New York's Jewish community organized a strike against Christmas exercises in the city's public schools. In light of state laws prohibiting the teaching of "religious doctrines or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect," they asked the Board of Education to bar school-based festivities that had in the past included such elements as religious hymns, pictures of the Madonna, holly, mistletoe, and Christmas trees. (They also maintained that any "symbols of Judaism, Mohammedanism, or infidelism" should be banned as well.) When the Board of Education failed to respond to...

As a local pastor, I watched, listened and read with amusement the comments of people about the role of the “church” during the recent same-sex marriage scenario. Many shared verbally on talk shows and by the written word in papers, blogs and so forth that the church had no right to be involved in politics during the same-sex debate. Albeit the Catholic Church received most of the criticism, I am sure those complaining wanted their comments directed to all churches that were against same-sex marriage. I found one item somewhat amusing. Those who were appalled at the Catholic Church being...

If one examines the Courts opinion in the 1962 case and cross-references it with modern arguments by groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, they will find an argument for implied compulsion where no actual compulsion exists. As articulated by Justice Douglas in his 1962 opinion, “It is said that the element of coercion is inherent in the giving of this prayer… [students in a classroom are] in a sense a “captive” audience.” This view resonates rhetorically with the contrived idea the First Amendment is intended to protect people from religion, rather than its explicit intent to protect the free...

Some D.C. Council members and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton are reaching out to the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to see whether they can find a compromise so the Church will not end its social services contracts with the city if the council legalizes same-sex marriage. After a week of heated rhetoric, District officials said Thursday that they see a way for Catholic Charities to continue operating programs with city money while assuring that the organization's gay and heterosexual employees would be treated equally if they got married.

| The formal introduction: Mike Adams is a professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and a syndicated columnist. The informal: He is probably the most outspoken Christian conservative professor in the United States now teaching at a state university. He's gone from passive writing to fiery prose, and from an incendiary lifestyle to one centered on true ideas. Q: Tell us about your 1.8 GPA in high school. I can't believe you brought that up! That was off limits! Q: How hard did you have to work to get a 1.8? My goal was to graduate with a 1.0,...

Combine all of the above and you have effectively nullified one of the cornerstones of the First Amendment of the Constitution: The right to free speech. After all, free speech in a Socialist State could wind up with what we’re doing right now: Holding the heads of our government accountable for their actions. Remember that phrase for just a moment, will you? Yet Obama is over in China, “nudging” their leaders about the importance of unimpeded access to the Internet for their citizens, saying: “I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens...

Officials: Anita Dunn may be leaving with her little red book, but her husband enters as the next White House counsel, bringing experience in suppressing dissent, assaulting the First Amendment and limiting speech. Dunn, whose favorite philosophers include mass murderer Mao Zedong, was expected to leave after a short stint. She rose to fame as chief strategist for former Senate majority leader, now national health care guru, Tom Daschle. While serving as White House communications director, she was the commanding general of the administration "war" on Fox News. Like her philosophical mentor, Mao, and her colleague, FCC diversity czar Mark...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Firefighter Mike Di’Giacomo said his SUV is banned from in the firehouse because the bumper stickers he has on it, displays his political views. Di’Giacomo said he has never run into a problem like this in the 10 years he has been with the department. The bumper stickers read: Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot I’ll keep my guns, freedom and money. You keep the change Obama Bin Lyin. Impeach Now

Of all the sins of the campus left, the worst is hypocrisy. Academic freedom is a spigot they turn on and off at their convenience. This evening, Ray Luc Levasseur, a convicted terrorist who served 18 years of a 45-year sentence, will participate in a "Colloquium on Social Change" at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, sponsored by a "progressive" faculty group called "Social Thought and Political Economy." Levasseur was the leader of the United Freedom Front, which worked for social change from 1976 to 1984 by bombing government buildings, robbing banks, murdering a New Jersey state trooper, and attempting...

The phrase “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” sounds innocent enough. Who could be against such an agreement? But in fact it appears to be a pretext for a massive invasion of privacy, motivated in part by the entertainment industry seeking to maintain copyrights. But once unleashed, such an assault on freedom will know no bounds. What if Big Brother finds on your laptop that you think ID supports certain traditional moral views, and what if any articulation of such views comes to be regarded as a hate crime? (Click excerpt link for MUST SEE VIDEO!)

"You put that camera away! You put that camera away!" What started out as a peaceful protest in front of a church in Newark ends with an officer taking a news crew down.

<p>JACKSON, Miss.-- University of Mississippi football fans who refuse to stop chanting "the South will rise again" are on the verge of losing one of their favorite fight songs, the school's chancellor said Monday.</p> <p>Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones said "From Dixie With Love" will no longer be played at games if fans continue the racially offensive chant.</p>

This column is in answer to the linked NAACP objection to my column(s.) Below are the column in question and the letter. Please read both before perusing my response. http://www.daveweinbaum.com/column100109.html http://www.therolladailynews.com/opinions/letters_to_the_editor/x1340500084/NAACP-takes-issue-with-Weinbaum-online-column First I want to thank the NAACP for providing me with column fodder as this can be problematic on a weekly basis.

Senior congressional Democrats want a report on the ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya to be retracted. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) made the demand in a letter dated Tuesday to James Billington, the Librarian of Congress. They asked the Law Library of Congress to withdraw and correct the August 2009 report titled “Honduras: Constitutional Issues.” “The report, which has contributed to the political crisis that still wracks Honduras, contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States, and...

A Cape Girardeau man was arrested for flag desecration Friday, a case that was dismissed within hours because of a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment. Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said that he was unaware of the case, Texas v. Johnson, that invalidated the laws of 48 states, when he filed misdemeanor charges against Frank L. Snider III. Missouri's law was passed in 1980. When asked whether the state law could be enforced, Swingle said he needed to research the issue. After reviewing the court's opinion, he...

SNIPPET: "A hate crimes bill sent to President Obama for his signature raises a red flag for Christians." SNIPPET: "Barber explains that Liberty Counsel intends to challenge the constitutionality of the hate crimes legislation."

The Federal Communications Commission's unanimous support yesterday for a rule that would open the door to government regulation of the Internet has raised the concern of free speech advocates, but there are other members of the Obama administration who support similar measures. The president's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, drew up a "First Amendment New Deal," a new "fairness doctrine" that would include the establishment of a panel of "nonpartisan experts" to ensure "diversity of view" on the airwaves. Sunstein compared the need for the government to regulate broadcasting to the moral obligation of the U.S. to impose new...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

Introduction to the Free Speech ClauseThe issues: What events influenced the thinking of the framers about the right of free speech?  What is the original understanding of the First Amendment? What values does the Free Speech Clause serve?  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment  of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  IntroductionAlthough First Amendment jurisprudence is almost entirely a creation that began in the 20th century, common law...

Can you do journalism and not be a "journalist"? Do people declared "journalists" get special speech and press rights that other American citizens do not enjoy? Can anyone enjoy the right to free speech and free publication, even if that individual is not a full-time professional reporter? These are some of the important legal questions that American politicians and bureaucrats must confront now that the Internet has made possible for people other than employees of major media companies to reach large and widespread audiences. In recent weeks, federal officials seems to be favoring a view that certain individuals enjoy more...

A Historic Speech By Michael Savage, that was supposed to be given at the Cambridge Debate Union on the topic of political correctness and free speech, but was cancelled at the last minute under political pressure by the Gordon Brown administration. Audio Here Part 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV2Ok8_PJ0o Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4g8C7vfNIU

Media Bias: Not long after pro football welcomed a convicted felon back on the playing field, Rush Limbaugh is dropped for his opinions from a group seeking to buy an NFL franchise. Won't someone throw a flag? When even Keith Olbermann says back off, you know the politically correct critics of the conservative icon and megaradio talk host's proposed part ownership of the St. Louis Rams are guilty of piling on. The prospect of the leading conservative voice in America participating in the purchase of a football team sent the liberal elites into cardiac arrest and into a frenzied campaign...

Byron York blows the whistle on Democratic legislation, about to be enacted by Congress, which purports to partially repeal the First Amendment: "The [hate] crime bill -- which would broaden the protected classes for hate crimes to include sexual orientation and "gender identity," which the bill defines as a victim's "actual or perceived gender-related characteristics" -- passed the House earlier this year as a stand-alone measure. But it's never had the votes to succeed by itself in the Senate. So over the summer Democrats, with the power of their 60-vote majority, attached it to the defense [appropriations] bill." "Republicans argued...

O’Reilly told Dawkins” you insist you can’t even mention it, that is fascism, sir. Was he right? Is it constitutional/scientific to insist that only materialistic evolution can be taught? See: O’Reilly vs. Atheist Author Richard Dawkins...

Robert McChesney, former editor of Monthly Review, a leading Marxist publication, has dangerously close ties to the Obama administration, Glenn Beck said on his TV show last week. McChesney created the “media reform” organization Free Press, and served on the board of Norman Solomon's Institute for Public Accuracy. He remains on the board of Monthly Review, which has a half-century history of supporting Communist movements and regimes. Echoing President Obama's media diversity czar Mark Lloyd, McChesney supports Venezuela's Marxist strongman Hugo Chavez and that country's crackdown on the media. He even argued that owners of an opposition TV station that...

When it comes to the areas protected by the First Amendment, Congress should write with a scalpel and not with a buzz saw. I wish I'd said that. Defense attorney Patricia Millett did. She was arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of her client, Robert Stevens of Virginia, who faces prison time for selling videos of dogfights. A 1999 federal law makes it a crime to profit from depictions of animal cruelty. The law specifically exempts "any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value." The definition of artistic value alone is vague...

The air was thick with hypotheticals at the Supreme Court last week as the justices considered whether a law designed to outlaw videos depicting cruelty to animals was constitutional. Because there is no floor to human decadence, so-called “crush videos” depicting women in high heels crushing small animals to death enjoyed a certain popularity. Congress outlawed them. Most of the justices appeared to think that the law ran afoul of the First Amendment and they let fly with a quiver full of theoreticals. “What if I’m an aficionado of bullfighting who wants to promote his passion about the noble...

Deep in the heart of the Mojave National Preserve in California stands a five foot cross carefully disguised in a plywood box. The U.S. Park Service was forced to cover the cross until the Supreme Court decides whether the cross can remain in its place as a monument to fallen soldiers during World War I, or whether it must come down because its presence violates the Constitution. The case is the latest in a recent flurry of challenges to religious symbols placed on public property. The cross was constructed more than 70 years ago by the Veterans of Foreign Wars....

Religion and religious expression have been objects of censorship in the public schools for quite some time. However, the intolerance of anything related to religion has taken a turn for the absurd in recent years. It makes no difference that the material in question does not proselytize, or that it was presented to people who by and large do not know that it was religious, or even that it is not meant to be religious. What matters is what school officials consider to be religious. A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Nurre v....

On the last day of the UN's Hate Israel Human Rights Council meetings it passed a resolution crafted jointly by the U.S. and Egypt talks to importance of freedom of expression, calling it “one of the essential foundations of a democratic society” and urging countries to protect it ` After the "niceties" the resolution talks about “negative racial and religious stereotyping,” and condemns any advocacy of “religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” It urges governments to “address and combat such incidents,” in line with their obligations under international law. Speaking on behalf of the European Union,...

As demonstrations have evolved with the help of text messages and online social networks, so too has the response of law enforcement. On Thursday, F.B.I. agents descended on a house in Jackson Heights, Queens, and spent 16 hours searching it. The most likely reason for the raid: a man who lived there had helped coordinate communications among protesters at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh. The man, Elliot Madison, 41, a social worker who has described himself as an anarchist, had been arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a...

<p>The city of Lodi is facing a possible lawsuit after the City Council voted to support a policy of saying prayers before council meetings.</p> <p>After the vote Wednesday, an official with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation repeated the group's threat to sue the city.</p>

American Thinker has a piece about Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein's new book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done. The premise of the book, it seems, is that there must be "standards and ground rules" for the Internet era. American Thinker pulled this section from the book:

A high school cheerleading squad is getting flak after parading religious banners at football games. The Lakeview-Fort Oglethrope High School cheerleaders, of Georgia, have tried everything to get their team to win, including displaying football banners with such biblical verse as “commit to the lord” and “take charge of it,” according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...

GATE CITY — A group of students at Gate City High School is hoping to send a message at Friday’s home football game against Bluefield High School. They’re wanting to let the American Civil Liberties Union know that nothing can make them quit praying. “This Friday at the homecoming football game, students, and whomever wants to join, will be saying a prayer,” said Lindsey Burke, a senior and member of the volleyball team at Gate City. “We are also planning to wear the T-shirts at the game. By doing this we are hoping to prove a point ... that no...

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) called on Arizona state and federal officials on Monday to stop enforcing a requirement prohibiting the state's schoolchildren from expressing religious viewpoints through Christmas themes while decorating ornaments for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Arizona was chosen this year to present 4,000 handcrafted ornaments made by elementary, middle-school, and high-school students to decorate Washington, D.C.'s annual Christmas tree. Guidelines for the ornaments include specifications for their size, weight, composition, and the directive that "Ornaments cannot reflect a religious or political theme… Instead share your interpretation of...

Catholic Online As I watch the appointment of radical social activists such as Chai Feldblum to significant positions I grow increasingly concerned. WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – The White House Press Secretary issued this release: Chai R. Feldblum, Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Chai Feldblum is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where she has taught since 1991. She also founded the Law Center’s Federal Legislation and Administrative Clinic, a program designed to train students to become legislative lawyers. Feldblum previously served as Legislative Counsel to the AIDS Project of the American Civil Liberties...

The Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter to Governor Brewer and other officials saying that it goes against the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By KFYI News (KFYI News) Federal and Arizona officials, including Governor Brewer, were sent a letter by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) to stop enforcing a requirement banning kids from creating ornaments with religious themes for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Click here to read the entire letter. Arizona was given the honor of providing Washington D.C. their annual Christmas tree and having schoolchildren from around the state decorate the tree with some 4,000 ornaments....

In one small Michigan town, another chapter is being written in a controversial library debate. On September 23, nearly 300 Owosso, Mich. citizens crowded a local middle school to discuss whether or not filtering software should be placed on all Shiawassee District Library computers. The filters would prevent patrons from accessing "adult content."

Free Speech: The Senate votes against transparency as the administration silences a private insurer for exposing the president's health care proposal. Meanwhile, AARP is allowed to tout reform as it awaits payday. We weren't surprised when the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday voted 12 to 11 against allowing two weeks for the Congressional Budget Office to complete its cost analysis of the health care bill pushed by Montana Democrat Max Baucus and to put the bill online in its original wording. Instead, the Senate panel passed another amendment to require the committee to post the full bill online in "conceptual"...

Congressional Republicans on Tuesday accused the federal government of unfairly targeting health insurance giant Humana ... for letters the company sent to Medicare Advantage enrollees suggesting that health-care legislation could lower their benefits. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a Sept. 18 letter to Humana, said it had started an investigation of the company's marketing practices. The agency ordered Humana to cease telling its enrollees to call their lawmakers about proposed cuts to privately-run Medicare plans, known as Medicare Advantage plans. Medicare officials pointed to letters from Humana to Medicare Advantage suggesting that, under health-care legislation pushed by Democrats, seniors and...

Boys and Girls, here come Obama's Brown Shirts again, trying to control the internet. Last month it was Senate Bill S.773 introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, that would allow the POTUS to seize temporary control of the internet in an emergency of his choosing. The bill would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Now its net "neutrality" being pushed as a way to regulate free speech on the internet. Oh, at first glance the concept of net neutrality is being pushed to support internet...

The Obama administration is continuing its strategy of attacking the first amendment rights of anyone who disagrees with the Obamacare bills making their way through the congress. The latest victim is the Humana Corporation. Humana created a mailing for seniors that talked about the $500 billion dollar Medicare and Medicaid cuts in the Baucus version of the Obamacare bill suggesting that it would lead to service cuts. Baucus contends that the "efficiency fairy" will swoop down and sprinkle dust on the Medicare/Medicaid budgets and make the programs work just the same despite the budget cuts. Humana doesn't believe in an...

For years, many of us in the blogosphere have argued that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold, violates the fundamental Constitutional exercise of free speech, especially in politics, which the founders expressly intended to protect. The Supreme Court failed in its duty to protect the First Amendment when it had the chance, as did George W. Bush when he signed the legislation into law. Finally, a federal appellate court has recognized the insult to the Constitution that the BCRA represents: A federal appeals court overturned hard-fought campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling on Friday that will...

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama’s promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet. …without notifying or asking the consent of site users. Please, don’t worry gentle reader, surely there’ll be no attempt to re-educate those critical of the White House. The White House is merely collecting the info because like the Russia’s KGB they are lovingly concerned as...

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet. Defenders of the White House actions said the Presidential Records Act requires that the administration gather the information and that it was justified in taking the additional step of asking a private contractor to "crawl and archive" all such material. Nicholas Shapiro, a White House...

The First Amendment, as rewritten under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except if it is funded by a corporation, unless it is a media corporation, or if the speech occurs just prior to an election, unless it is in the form of a book, which, even though the law covers books, too, the Federal Election Commission would never apply that law to books because we say so, though we said something entirely different a couple of months ago." In an apoplexy of righteous indignation over...

WASHINGTON.Last March, during the Supreme Court argument concerning the Federal Election Commission's banning of a political movie, several justices were aghast. Suddenly and belatedly they saw the abyss that could swallow the First Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia was "a little disoriented" and Justice Samuel Alito said "that's pretty incredible." Chief Justice John Roberts said: "If we accept your constitutional argument, we're establishing a precedent that you yourself say would extend to banning the book" -- a hypothetical 500-page book containing one sentence that said "vote for" a particular candidate. What shocked them, but should not have, were statements by a...

High court tackles 'Hillary: The Movie,' again It's 'not a musical comedy,' Justice Stephen Breyer says of the film WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored political candidates in time for next year's elections. In a case that began with a movie attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor jumped right into the questioning. She appeared skeptical about taking the far-reaching step of lifting the ban, a move urged on the court by a lawyer for a group that made the 90-minute movie that sought to...