Free Republic

Here is but the latest act of submission to Islam by your State Department. A State Department cable has just been sent out with this announcement: The Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) has assembled a range of innovative and traditional tools to support Posts' outreach activities during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Here, in contrast, is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: 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,...

U.S. President Barack Obama says news organizations are putting too much emphasis on scenes of hostile protesters at public meetings on his health care reform plan. The president received tough but polite questions from Americans Friday in the Northwestern state of Montana. Mr. Obama said most meetings on his plan have been civil, and those that have been disrupted are in the minority. "What you have not seen on TV, and what makes me proud, are the many constructive meetings going on all over the country. Everywhere across the country you are seeing people who are coming together and having...

Town Hall discussions have been on the news lately about Obama's Health Care Reform. Obama's ACORN Thugs have teamed up with Local Police outside of Town Hall meetings to silence discussions among the people about the proposed Socialized Health Care plan that The Obama Administration is hell bent in passing into law. Your very freedom is at stake here!

Let us suppose ... that some prince were desirous to force his subjects to ... preserve the health and strength of their bodies. ..." The above hypothetical was posited not in yesterday's debate but in 1685, in "A Letter Concerning Toleration," John Locke's momentous essay on religious liberty. To expose the folly of 17th-century religious intolerance, Locke brings it to a logical and ridiculous extreme: government-run health care. Self-evident to his contemporaries was the truth that . . . .

From: Margarida Jorge To: HCAN Field Partners RE: HCAN—Responding to Right-Wing Attacks in the Field - August 4, 2009 Since early February, we’ve seen increasing numbers of militant right-wing activists attending public meetings across the country targeting Members of Congress and President Obama. Now in the August recess, the “tea-bagger” protesters and right-wing activists are showing up in larger numbers with a mission to be as disruptive as possible in the hopes of rattling Members of Congress and halting health care reform through pure spectacle and obstruction. Our response is shaped by 3 things: Our targets are Members of Congress...

On a political forum I happened to run across one of the peculiar arguments some use against people of faith. Some have complained about invocations of the name of the Creator in political matters, or even requests for prayers for our country. The argument goes something like this: “Your religion says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. There is supposed to be separation of church and state in this country.” For some reason, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (separation of church and state) has come to mean...

If you see anybody publicly opposing President Obama’s plan to implement a government-centric overhaul of the health care system, the White House wants you to report that person (or persons) ASAP. From the White House website: There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see...

By now most Freepers have become acquainted with the poster under discussion. The purpose of this thread is to facilitate widespread publication and posting of the same in an effort to reverse the past few decades of socialist encroachments on freedom-loving Americans who are too busy working to attend all the politically motivated meetings and legislation so blindly accepted and passed as "normal." Here are a few tips and suggestions to get the thread rolling. 1.) Get hold of a hi-res version and find a printer who will multiply this image on an adhesive paper so it sticks wherever you...

Usually newspapers are big defenders of free speech, but not the Washington Post. It gave Ian Shapira, one of its reporters, nearly 2000 words to complain that a website had ripped off his story. The problem was not that the website had plagiarized the piece. Shapira acknowledged that his story was credited and even linked to by the website, which was a major source of readers for the original article. However, Shapira is upset that the website may have made money off his work, because it sell ads based on viewership. In this case, the website piece based on Shapira's...

SCRANTON – A Hughestown man who was cited with disorderly conduct after displaying a sign in his pickup’s rear window using the f-word is suing the borough, the police officer who cited him and other borough officials. He’s seeking economic, non-economic, special and punitive damages to be determined at a jury trial, as well as costs, expenses, attorney fees and other relief the court deems just and equitable. According to the suit, Decker on Nov. 11 received a non-traffic citation for disorderly conduct issued by Patrolman Robert Leombruni because of a sign on Decker’s truck that read: “If your (sic)...

The battle against censorship by the House Democrat majority continues today as Republicans plan to speak out on the issue during their hour-long leadership Special Orders speeches tonight from the House floor. Highly-placed Republican staffers tell HUMAN EVENTS that all Republican members were invited to defend their First Amendment right to free speech tonight during one-hour Special Orders speeches, giving examples of censorship of their franking privileges by Democrats on the Franking Commission.  Members were asked to bring and read aloud franking disapprovals they have received that may have violated their free speech rights. Democrats on the commission are blocking...

After being banned from a game for "trash talking", Erik Estavillo wants $55,000 and says he needs the game to socializeWhat happens when you take away someone’s video games? You might get sued. A San Jose, Calif., man is suing Sony, claiming the company violated his first amendment rights when they banned him from playing the PlayStation 3 game "Resistance" for something he may have said while communicating with other players. Erik Estavillo, who says he suffers from agoraphobia, a fear of crowds and public places, depends completely on the PlayStation game for social interaction. But Sony occasionally bans users...

When free people refuse to be cowed and actually stand up against statist government oppression of their rights, they usually prevail. Which explains perfectly why this story needs to get out, and why the mainstream media studiously ignore any mention of it.

Thomas Jefferson, The First Amendment and the separation of church and state - most are surprised to discover that neither the Constitution nor the First Amendment contain these words. The First Amendment simply states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The fact that the phrase “separation of church and state” appears in no founding document does not prevent many judicial and social activists from invoking that phrase as the basis for many public policy decisions. Today, Thomas Jefferson (author of that phrase) is portrayed as the authority on the First...

Ward Churchill in Denial by: Bethany Stotts, July 13, 2009 A jury may have decided in April that University of Colorado at Boulder officials violated former professor Ward Churchill’s first amendment rights when firing him, but a Denver District Court Judge has ruled that Churchill will neither receive his job back nor receive front pay for his termination. “Professor Churchill’s own statements during the trial established that he has not seriously pursued any efforts to gain comparable employment, but has instead chosen to give lectures and other presentations as a means of supplementing his income,” wrote Judge Larry J. Nye...

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor and friend to the national Messiah, has been tapped to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Sunstein was one of the major influences on a young Obama’s attitudes on government regulation and economics, a scary proposition considering the degree to which the Obama administration is attempting to pull us toward Soviet-style communism. According to the Journal, many of those familiar with Sunstein’s work and philosophy have said that his fingerprints are obvious in many of the administration’s policies, including credit card reform and...

If you cherish your freedom and liberties that our veterans fought and died for, you better take a moment to learn more about this bill that aims to apparently eliminate individual liberty in the United States of America.

First Amendment Farewell Tour by: Brittany Fortier, July 02, 2009 Americans are in for some “change” they won’t believe in as the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats prepare to reinstall the Fairness Doctrine, argues one author. If they are successful, the First Amendment as we know it in America will no longer exist. Brad O’Leary, the publisher of the O’Leary Report and author of Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech spoke about this contentious issue at the Heritage Foundation on June 24, 2009. O’Leary argued that American newspapers are “totally and completely biased” in their coverage of President...

Activist alleges abuse of power TBI questions man for posting ‘Battle of Athens’ message on Internet By SKYLER SWISHER/ sswisher@c-dh.net FLY — A Maury County political activist says the secretary of state used the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as a tool to intimidate him because of his efforts to advocate election reform. But a spokesman for Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett says the secretary was only concerned about what he deemed to be a possible threat of violence. The dispute started when Bernie Ellis, a resident of the Fly community, referenced a civil uprising called the Battle of Athens,...

Following the frighteningly dangerous thinking of Judge Richard Posner – proposing rewriting copyright law to outlaw linking to and summarizing (aka talking about) news stories – now we have two more lemming lawyers following him off the cliff in a column written by the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Connie Schultz. First note well that Schultz is married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown as she calls on her newspapers and employer (my former employer, Advance Publications) and fellow columnists to influence Congress to remake copyright. She should be registered as a lobbyist. No joke. Schultz says that David Marburger, an alleged First...

E-mails sent by a “conservative” student to a “liberal” professor, calling him a traitor and threatening to “puke” all over him are not protected political speech, the Nebraska Court of Appeals said in a decision last week. Darren J. Drahota was found guilty of disturbing the peace and fined $250 for e-mails he sent to Bill Avery, then a University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor and now a state senator from Lincoln . The Nebraska Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, saying libelous and insulting or “fighting words” are not protected by the Constitution. The court described the content of...

In China, Christians have a choice: Join a government-approved church—which is constantly monitored by the authorities—or join an underground church.Thank heavens things like that don’t happen in the West, you may be thinking. Think again. In Britain, the government has begun sticking its nose in church business, telling churches what to do.According to the Daily Telegraph, starting next year, the British government is going to begin forcing churches and other religious institutions to hire open, practicing homosexuals. It will happen under the provisions of the so-called Equity Bill, which forbids discrimination against homosexuals or transsexuals. The law would “cover...

A Documentary Critical of the California Coastal Commission Under Attack June 17, 2009 - A filmmaker who is producing Sins of Commission, a movie critical of the California Coastal Commission’s infringement on private property rights, was served a subpoena by the commission to acquire raw footage of the film before its final release! Claiming that this intimidation is an attack on his 1st Amendment Rights, the filmmaker is going public. This legal tactic comes as no surprise to property owners who have dealt with a commission who has denied them the ability to make even the most modest improvements to...

The MPAA apparently said that the “enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic” during the World Copyright Summit. The worry is that their pro-copyright advocacy perspective is fading away in the public conscious. In an interesting report from IP-Watch where there were a few choice words levelled against those that disagreed with the view-points of the copyright industry. Apparently, Fritz Attaway suggested that it's false to assume that the rights of the industry and the interest of...

...today police are saying that one blogger, Harold “Hal” Turner, crossed the line when he suggested some Connecticut government officials should “obey the Constitution or die. ”Turner, a New Jersey native, was apparently angry about proposed legislation that would have given lay members of Roman Catholic churches in Connecticut more control over their parish’s finances, the Associated Press is reporting. The blogger and radio show host turned himself in to the Connecticut police this afternoon on a charge of inciting violence.

New Hampshire's legislature has approved gay marriage in that state. I don't agree with gay marriage, but they did it the right way. I believe it is a states rights issue and that it should not be decided by mullahs in black robes.The governor, God bless him, insisted that churches should not be coerced into doing anything against their beliefs. While I applaud his intentions, here's what I have a problem with: Lynch, a Democrat, called it "a day to celebrate in New Hampshire." The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2010, clarifies that religious institutions and their employees are...

San Diego County officials agreed Wednesday to rescind a cease-and-desist order issued to a pastor holding a small Bible study in his home. In a letter to the pastor, the county’s chief administrative officer apologized for the incident involving a code enforcement officer who issued the order after reportedly asking the pastor’s wife inappropriately probing questions about the study. The letter informed Pastor David Jones and his legal counsel Dean Broyles, president of the Western Center for Law & Policy, an Alliance Defense Fund allied organization, that the order was wrongfully issued and that the county would conduct a thorough...

www.catholicnewsagency.com State ethics office investigates Connecticut diocese as lobbying group Diocese of Bridgeport sues for First Amendment violation Bishop William Lori Bridgeport, Conn., May 29, 2009 / 05:16 pm (CNA).- In response to its efforts to fight a bill that would have redefined the financial and pastoral structure of the Catholic Church in Connecticut, the Diocese of Bridgeport is now being investigated by the Office of State Ethics (OSE) for acting as a lobbying group without registering as one. Today, the diocese filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the investigation. According to the Diocese of Bridgeport, a letter...

It was my old friend and mentor, Luigi Barzini, who asseverated, "Americans talk too much." The year was 1978, and I cannot recall the controversy that had aroused him. Luigi's point was that...he thought our jabbering was again obscuring careful thought. He was a great friend of America...He thought we often argued garrulously about things that were not worth the argument. A case is about to be tried in the Supreme Court that fits Luigi's diagnosis. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit in 2001 demanding that a 7-foot cross erected in the California desert in 1934 commemorating sacrifices...

A San Diego pastor says county officials have told him he needs a permit to host a weekly Bible study in his home. Pastor David Jones and his wife, Mary, were hosting the weekly study near their church, when they say they were visited by a county code enforcement officer. According to Dean Broyles, an attorney for the Joneses, the county official asked the pastor if they hosted a regular weekly meeting in their home, and if they prayed and said "Amen" and "Praise the Lord" at those meetings. After replying in the affirmative to those inquiries, a subsequent citation...

To All Shelby County, TN Freepers, please refer to the following URL (http://agendapub.shelbycountytn.gov/sirepub/view.aspx?cabinet=PUBLISHED_MEETINGS&fileid=55753. This document represents and amendment to Chapter 12 of the Shelby County Code of Ordinances. This amendment contains in part what is listed below. This is scheduled to be voted on this Wednesday, 5/27 by the Shelby County Commission. This is another attempt to justify and promote immoral sexual behavior. Ultimately, this amendment will allow homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, transvestites, etc.. to enter our schools as teachers with no means to stop it. Please call your Shelby County commissioner immediately and tell them to vote NO on this...

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.I am sick and tired, to say the least, of the First Amendment being read by politicians, courts and citizens as a right to NOT hear or read free speech. So laughably misread, the First Amendment is frequently being used for the polar oppposite of its original intent. In Frisco, Texas, some parents are indulging in...

A socialist-oriented “media reform” group with intimate ties to the Obama Administration and George Soros is calling for new federal programs and the spending of tens of billions of dollars to keep journalists employed at liberal media outlets or at new “public media.” The group, which calls itself Free Press, is urging “an alternative media infrastructure, one that is insulated from the commercial pressures that brought us to our current crisis.” However, speakers at this week's Free Press "summit" had nothing to say about the well-documented liberal bias that has contributed to the decline in readers and viewers for traditional...

A proposed new law would punish those who bullied, harassed or intimidated others online with jail, a fine, or both. The “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act”, proposed by Republican senator Linda Sanchez, is designed to deter the kind of behavior which led to the death of Megan Meyers, after a cyber-bullying campaign from the mother of one of her schoolmates. The text of the bill defines in very broad terms the kind of action that could be considered unlawful, as well as the penalties Sanchez and the supporters of the bill would like to see imposed. The text of the...

Michael Savage is banned from the UK. That is not important, the reason why is compelling ... "I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," Ms Smith told GMTV. "Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now...

That's what a House of Representatives bill, proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others, would do. Here's the relevant text: Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.... ["Communication"] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information...

A Mission Viejo high school history teacher violated the First Amendment by disparaging Christians during a classroom lecture, a federal judge ruled today. James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, was found guilty of referring to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.

Obama's war on free speech Exclusive: Joseph Farah predicts actions that would tighten state control on media Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are intent on nationalizing media in the U.S. much the same way they nationalized the U.S. auto industry and the nation's banking and financial institutions. This isn't the so-called "Fairness Doctrine." It's much worse. Here's what you can expect in the coming weeks and months: a new appointment to the position of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who will implement a plan to create "community advisory boards" of community activists to monitor the content of talk-radio programs,...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am often asked whether I have any answers to all the problems that I mention or what those answers might be. Well, let me tell you, I certainly have a lot of answers. Here are a few things that I believe we should do in the West, to stop the Islamization. First, I have already said it, we have to stop the idea of "Cultural Relativism." Get rid of the misconception that all cultures are equal. They are not. Our culture based on Christianity, on Judeaism and Humanism is far better than the Islamic culture. So...

aced with a rash of litigation over their ratings of mortgage-backed securities, credit-rating firms are hoping to rely on a longtime legal ace-in-the-hole: the Constitution. But that protection is being questioned amid allegations that the firms had conflicts that encouraged them to give unduly rosy opinions about the creditworthiness of securities backed by subprime mortgages. Moody's Corp., McGraw-Hill Cos.' Standard & Poor's and Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings were hit with litigation over their ratings after homeowner defaults triggered investor losses in the securities. SNIP Yet to succeed in court, investors may need to navigate a thorny constitutional issue: Are the...

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee will vote on a controversial legislation next week that seeks to add homosexual and transgender people to the list of classes federally protected from hate crimes. H.R. 1913, named the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Act of 2009, is expected to be passed by the committee next week and come to the House floor for a vote in the spring, announced Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the original co-sponsor of the bill and an openly gay member of Congress, on his website.

John Zeigler: John went to USC to witness and ask questions about Katie Couric getting the Walter Cronkite journalism award for her interview of Sarah Palin. He intended to also give away copies of his film but was literally prevented from doing so. He did not go there hoping for or expecting any sort of confrontation, especially with law enforcement. He was simply shocked and horrified by what happened there, as should every freedom loving American. He did absolutely nothing wrong and was handcuffed, detained and literally abused by law enforcement at the event. The video speaks for itself, John...

A new Department of Homeland Security report is warning law enforcement officials of a growing threat of “right-wing extremist groups.” “The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn — including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit — could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities,” the report warns. The report explains that threats so far have been “largely rhetorical,” but points to the April 4 shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh as a “recent example of potential violence associated with right-wing extremism.” The document...

The United States government is preparing to deny the rights of the Right. The Department of Homeland Security, a federal agency, under Janet Napolitano (appointed by “acting” alien president Barry Soetoro, a.k.a. “Barack Hussein Obama”), has issued warnings to police against those it considers inimical or threatening to the domestic “security” of the United States. In other words, anyone disagreeing with the racidal Left-wing Communist agenda of the current administration in Washington (including Congress). From the Washington Times, April 14, 2009, “Federal agency warns of radicals on right”: The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a...

CARLSBAD — Organizers of an event scheduled for Income Tax Filing Day, April 15, encountered opposition from an unexpected corner the administration of the Carlsbad campus of New Mexico State University when they tried to post fliers publicizing their TEA Party Day rally scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday on the lawn of the Eddy County Courthouse. snip

A judge who ruled that prayers in Jesus Name, at the Indiana House of Representatives was unconstitutional, but prayers to Allah were not, has been nominated by the Obama Administration to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The change we were supposed to believe in is worrying more Americans as the days go by. With the democrats in the majority in both the House and Senate, Dems feel empowered or better yet, a sense of duty to bring forth their version of social change. Upon ending his Euro-trip, our President decreed to his Muslim audience,...

Anti-God Ads Hit Dallas by Christine Dao* In the heart of the Bible belt, billboards stating “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone” have been posted in parts of Dallas, home of the Institute for Creation Research. The boards are sponsored by the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason (DFWCoR), an atheist nonprofit group which joins together smaller local anti-theistic organizations to “increase the growth, visibility and acceptance of nontheists throughout the Metroplex.”[1] Two ads have been posted in the D/FW area, one just a few miles from ICR headquarters, and will remain up through April. According to Fred Edwords...

John McCain has made a number of heroic contributions to American politics and life, but this law isn't one of them. How in the world did he ever wind up sponsoring this monstrosity? The only excuse I can come up with is that he got involved with bad company. Namely, the very epitome of liberal -- excuse me, progressive -- excess, Russ Feingold. Sen. Feingold's proposals regularly disappoint, but by now they no longer surprise. Justice Kennedy now has figured it out: The whole statute fails the constitutional test. It is an infringement on free speech -- an injury and...

Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that Web sites that used the work of news organizations must obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not. A.P. executives said they were concerned about a variety of news forums around the Web, including major search engines like Google and Yahoo and aggregators like the Drudge Report that link to news articles, smaller sites that sometimes reproduce articles whole, and companies that sell packaged news feeds. They said they did not...

In what should send a frightening chill down the spine of every blogger, writer, journalist and First Amendment advocate in the United States, Phoenix police raided the home of a blogger who has been highly critical of the department. Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging. The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment - which he says makes it obvious the raid was an...