Free Republic

Eric Schmidt quotes the judicial order as follows:

Seems this operation was a lot bigger than just an errant policy paper from a local field office. When news broke a few weeks ago about the FBI targeting the Catholic Church's Latin mass enthusiasts as part of the great Joe Biden hunt for "extremists," outrage ensured, and the bureau moved quickly to dismiss the matter as the doing of an errant field office, which put out a bum policy paper. It certainly wasn't the FBI's policy to target Americans for their beliefs, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified, adding that the miscreants in the Richmond local field office would be...

Oregon State Police Detective Scott Hill was on the stand today (Thursday August 2nd) at the trial of FBI Hostage Team Agent W. Joseph Astarita. Astarita is charged with three counts related to his lying about two shots fire moments before LaVoy Finicum was shot in the back and killed by an Oregon State Police trooper. Hill said he had a calm interview with Astarita, a short unrecorded interview hours after the shooting at 11pn on January 26, 2016. At that time Hill wasn't aware of unaccounted for shots fired at the scene.....

People with serious mental illnesses who use guns to commit suicide are often legally eligible to purchase guns, despite having a past record of an involuntary mental health examination and brief hospitalization, according to a new Duke Health analysis. The study, released in the June issue of Health Affairs, looked at gun use, violent crime and suicide among 81,704 people diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Pinellas counties over 10 years starting in 2002. Over that time, 254 study subjects committed suicide -- nearly four times the average suicide rate of the general adult...

I stand with Kim Davis! I will not comply! Free Republic is and always will remain a pro-God, pro-life, pro-family, pro-constitution, pro-liberty site. The recent SCOTUS ruling against marriage is a travesty against God, country and constitution. It is a shot against Christianity. The government has now officially declared war on Christianity and against individual Christians. Kim Davis is the first casualty who was actually jailed, but will not be the last. The Marxist/fascists have now taken over our government from the top down and will attempt to stomp out all resistance and the black-robed nazi judges will do their...

The mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed announced today the firing of the city's fire chief for the crime of being a Christian, according to news reports. It seems the fire chief, Kelvin Cochran, wrote a book for his Bible study group in which he espoused actual Christian beliefs. How dare he? But his firing doesn't infringe on religious freedom at all, so says the mayor. "This is not about religious freedom, this is not about free speech" the mayor reportedly said. "Judgement is the basis of the problem." So there you have it. If you're fired for being a Christian...

Salem officials declared Wednesday they will end a contract allowing Gordon College to use the city-owned Old Town Hall because of the Christian school’s opposition to expected federal hiring protection for gays and lesbians. Mayor Kimberley Driscoll, who also cited the college’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, said Gordon’s policies violate a city ordinance prohibiting Salem from contracting with entities that discriminate. But she said it would be “even more troubling” to have the city do business with “an institution that enables, and now advocates for, discrimination against the [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] community...” The college’s website...

Google says it's facing a rapidly increasing number of data requests from national governments, and particularly the United States government... Google says that, in the six-month period between January and June 2013, the United States government made almost 11,000 requests for information related to Google's users.... Overall, this means Google faced twice as many data requests between January and June 2013 than it did over the same period last year. Google added that this remarkable total "only include[s] the requests we're allowed to publish." Google says that, in most cases where data was requested, it handed over the information. That...

Grocery Store Owner Ordered to Pay Unemployment Benefits Over ‘Unacceptable’ Biblical Counseling TABOR, IA – A grocery store owner in Iowa has been ordered to pay unemployment benefits to a former employee who quit her job after she was questioned about her personal lifestyle and exhorted to read the Bible.Tyler Stille owns Tabor Market and Deli and is known for his strong Christian beliefs. He told reporters this week that he is up front with prospective employees about his faith before they are hired.“We have a Christian fish symbol on our sign,” Stille explained. “Before we hire anybody, we tell...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over its lax response to church politicking. The group argues that the tax agency is violating the Constitution by allowing tax-exempt churches and religious organizations to get involved in political campaigns. The suit points to several examples, including a full page newspaper ad by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The ad, which showed a photo of Rev. Billy Graham, urged Americans to vote along biblical principles. The 94-year-old evangelist also met with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in October and promised to do all he...

I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not. You know, when I first started in politics – and for a long time before that – everyone on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody. Which is exactly what they should be. They were unrelenting. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people. That changed in 1980. There are a lot of reasons...

"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." --The First Amendment Constitution of the United States The words are old, the First Amendment having been adopted in 1791 along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. But even today, whenever they're read, the effect is the same. The heart beats just a little faster. There is a majesty about those words, not...

In a court decision from 1990 called Employment Division v. Smith, the Court allowed the government greater latitude to restrict the free exercise of religion. The Court held in Smith that if a law was neutral as to religion and if it was generally applicable to all people, then the government was allowed to burden the free exercise of religion. The Smith case marked a drastic departure from the Supreme Court’s earlier precedents which uniformly held that any law, even if that law was neutral and generally applicable, could not burden the free exercise of religion unless the law was...

Freddie Schineller is a hip-looking math professor with a salt-and-pepper goatee. His artist wife, Holly, has long blond hair and stays home to take care of their four kids, ages 8-12. The middle-class family lives in a modest Tempe home full of lots of love, noise and pets, including two dogs and a python named Monty. Their bookshelves hold works by Plato, Leo Tolstoy and Franz Kafka, as well as the Book of Mormon and a Bible. But Holly and Freddie don't believe in G0d. And, earlier this year, they decided it was time to "come out of the closet"...

The American founding father and second President, John Adams, said that "The American Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other". Some foreign countries have tried adopting the US Constitution to govern their nations, but the process has been a disastrous failure. This is because those nations were not founded on bibilical Christianity. When you reflect on it, the idea of the First Ammendment is potentially dangerous. It gives everyone the right to shout the F-word in public, in the presence of children. The second ammendment provides even...

The RINO (reverend in name only) Terry Jones is like his fellow RINO, Fred Phelps, but in political drag. Jones, the "pastor" (PINO?) of the tiny and inconsequential Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., was jailed last week in Dearborn, Mich., "following a jury trial that found he was likely to create a 'breach of the peace' for plans to protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn," according to the Detroit News. Jones and his associate Wayne Sapp were taken into custody after they refused to post a $1 "peace bond." A judge then barred Jones and...

The US Justice Department is asking a federal judge in South Carolina to allow it to intervene in a lawsuit against a sheriff who allegedly forbids prisoners in his jail from receiving books, magazines, or printed materials other than copies of the King James version of the Bible.

In response to quack preacher Terry Jones burning the Koran, Senator Lindsey Graham wants to put limits on free speech. Perhaps the RINO Senator from South Carolina knows this, but his ambition is unconstitutional and as a lawyer Lindsey Graham should know this. Lindsey Graham want to make the burning of the Koran illegal Politico reports: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a military lawyer, is the first member of Congress to say the legislature needs to explore the possibility, however unlikely, of limiting some kinds of free speech – like Terry Jones’ Quran burning – that help America’s enemies. “I wish...

Nobody forced Syracuse to build a giant building with the First Amendment emblazoned on the side. Having done so, however, one would think that the university would at least have the shame to try to live up to it. In the above photo, you’re looking at the front of the newest addition to the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. It’s hard to imagine a more permanent salute to freedom of speech and the press than plastering the entire text of the First Amendment in 10-foot high letters across the enormous facade of one of your university’s...

I remember growing up in a conservative movement that, reacting to the rampant permissiveness of the 1960s and '70s, stressed the virtue of civility. Sure, you have the right to flagrantly offend your neighbors and your community. But should you? Conservatism used to answer "no." It was one of the cultural demarcations between the right and the left. If you were on the right, you generally thought it unacceptable to excuse boorish behavior with the utterance, "but it's my constitutional right!" Conservatives understood that self-restraint reduced the pressure for government-imposed restraint. We understood that with our civil rights came civic...