Free Republic

From the YouTube Post: Journalist Phelim McAleer asks Prof. Stephen Schneider from Stanford University an Inconvenient Question about 'Climategate' emails.

Crude cartoons intended to offend Muslims in St. Cloud were found posted on utility poles this week. The cartoons, reminiscent of those published in a Danish newspaper in 2005, "are clearly offensive to the Muslim community here, inappropriate and not wanted in our community," said police Sgt. Marty Sayre. Five pages of cartoons, posted on a pair of utility poles, depict the prophet Mohammed in derogatory ways, the Qur'an and a swastika. "We've had swastikas before, but I believe this is the first time we've seen" images specifically targeting Muslims, Sayre said. One of the posts was stapled to a...

EDITORIAL Christian Leaders' Stance On Civil Disobedience Is Dangerous Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox leaders are going too far when they declare they will break laws on abortion and same-sex marriage. November 28, 2009 Philosophers have argued for centuries over whether it is ever justifiable to break the law in the service of a higher cause. The question acquired a new complexity with the advent of societies such as the United States, in which laws were enacted by elected representatives and not decreed by a monarch or dictator. Few today would criticize civil rights activists, including the Rev. Martin Luther King...

GENEVA – Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery — essentially, a ban on blasphemy. .. Algeria and Pakistan have taken the lead in lobbying to bring the matter to a vote in the U.N. General Assembly. Such a ban would face great resistance in Western nations .. The countries that form the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference are currently lobbying a Geneva-based U.N. committee to accept its plan, .. If that occurs, Muslim countries and their allies in the developing world would stand a decent chance of...

MONTREAL — The federal anti-hate law that “official Jews� lobbied for and got passed has, 32 years later, backfired, sowing the seeds for political correctness, media chill and censorship that have undermined the values that define the Jewish People, says Alberta lawyer, author and activist Ezra Levant. Levant, who is Jewish, made the assertion in an Oct. 21 talk to a small audience at Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation about his 900-day saga of being prosecuted by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in his now defunct magazine, the...

Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still – but now in a forum with international legal implications. For years, Islamic nations have succeeded in passing "blasphemy" resolutions at the United Nations (in the General Assembly and in its human rights body). The measures call on states to limit religiously offensive language or speech. No one wants their beliefs ridiculed, but the freedom to disagree over faith is what allows for...

Though his channel remains public, Pastor James David Manning has been restricted from posting new material on YouTube for “hate speech”, simply for stating his religious views. With the passage of the new “hate crimes” bill, this opens up the door for an all out assault on religion and free speech. I’ve reported several times over the last week that the most popular YouTube channel dedicated to Michael Savage has been repeatedly banned from YouTube over the last few days. Who will be next? YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV3Mjp4sfm0 My Thoughts: http://www.joeseales.com/?p=64 Thanks

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."

Two conservative organizations, a physicians' group and a social policy think tank, are suing the Obama administration for privacy and free speech violations over a recent attempt to get people to e-mail the White House about any "fishy" misinformation they hear regarding health-care reform. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, claims that the call for such information was designed to shut up opponents of President Obama's health-care reform proposal and to chill free speech. In the lawsuit, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CARE) claim...

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Joe Kaufman, the Chairman of Americans Against Hate and the founder of CAIR Watch. FP: Joe Kaufman, welcome to Frontpage Interview. A little while ago, there was a great victory for you, for the War on Terror and for freedom of speech. The Texas Court of Appeals dismissed the case that was brought against you. But now it appears that the saga continues. The Muslim groups are pushing forward and asking the Texas Supreme Court to review the case. What exactly is going on? Give us an update.

The manager of a prominent Nashville hotel cancelled a contract with a conservative foundation to hold a conference this weekend on radical Islam, apparently after learning that the group would feature a keynote address by controversial Dutch parliamentarian and filmmaker, Geert Wilders. Muslim groups succeeded in preventing Wilders from screening “Fitna,” his 15-minute movie on radical Islam, in the House of Lords this February, on claims it was insulting to Muslims, and dogged him during a recent U.S. tour as well. Thomas A. Negri, managing director of Loew’s Vanderbilt Hotel and Office complex in Nashville, told Newsmax on Wednesday that...

Tennessean - headline and link only. http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090530/NEWS01/905300331/Nashville+hotel+drops+jihad+conference+over+safety+concerns

The manager of a prominent Nashville hotel cancelled a contract with a conservative foundation to hold a conference this weekend on radical Islam, apparently after learning that the group would feature a keynote address by controversial Dutch parliamentarian and filmmaker, Geert Wilders. Muslim groups succeeded in preventing Wilders from screening “Fitna,” his 15-minute movie on radical Islam, in the House of Lords this February, on claims it was insulting to Muslims, and dogged him during a recent U.S. tour as well.... Negri refused to say why he felt the conference would adversely affect the “health, safety and well-being” of the...

JERUSALEM – President Obama should act against the "denigration" of Islam in newspaper columns, on talk radio and in religious sermons nationwide, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, wrote in a letter to the president. As Obama prepares for his much anticipated address to the Muslim world tomorrow, CAIR offered the president some tips on how to better foster dialogue and understanding with Islam. "Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Islamophobia of the type we see today was at the margins of public discourse," wrote CAIR's Nihad Awad. "Unfortunately, today it is quite common to...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 5:35 pm Update on Recovery Act Lobbying Rules: New Limits on Special Interest Influence Another update from Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, in the spirit of transparency as always: I am writing with an update on the President’s March 20, 2009 Memorandum on Ensuring Responsible Spending of Recovery Act Funds. Section 3 of the Memorandum required all oral communications between federally registered lobbyists and government officials concerning Recovery Act policy to be disclosed on the...

Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a bible study....

he UN’s Human Rights Council, friend to Islamists and tyrants everywhere n December 2006, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an international group established in 1971 and representing 57 countries, hosted an emergency summit in Mecca. The event became infamous after two angry imams from Denmark presented a dossier of cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that mocked the Prophet Mohammed. In the ensuing uproar, Muslims murdered several people in Europe and torched the Danish embassy in Beirut. But the cartoon episode wasn’t the summit’s starkest example of Muslim outrage over free speech. The most critical decision that...

Imagine it's 1940, and picture Adolf Hitler speaking at a US university, receiving a polite reception, while Winston Churchill is barred from speaking because his safety cannot be guaranteed. It's unthinkable, yet the very same pro-fascist dynamic is a reality in 21st Century America. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to America knowing he is a second-class citizen who is denied the free-speech rights enjoyed even by prominent jihadists, having been violently prevented from speaking on campuses in the US and Canada in recent years. Protestors at Berkeley, the campus once synonymous with the term "free speech," forced the cancellation...

Great Britain's decision to ban Michael Savage because of his "extreme views" marks a dark day in the history of free speech. The shame should be particularly severe in a nation that gave birth to John Stuart Mill, the 19th century political philosopher whose writings so strongly advanced the cause of open dialogue. Mill argued in his pivotal essay "On Liberty" that intolerance to hear opposing views amounts to an assertion that the politically correct view is infallible. Doubting that any human view could be without error, Mill fought hard to convince readers of the importance of encouraging the expression...

The Rutherford Institute is suing a Billings, Montana, school over a graduation decision. John Whitehead, founder of the Institute, says many people were scheduled to speak at the 2008 Butte High School graduation. Some chose serious subjects, others humor, he says. "Renee Griffith, who is a Christian, wanted to mention Christ once and mention God once in one of her very short remarks, and the school said she couldn't do it," he explains. "She [insisted she] wanted to do it, so then they actually removed her from the graduation ceremony and did not allow her to speak." According to a...

It appears as if another country is afraid of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders because of his outspoken views about Islam and his film Fitna, which intersperses excerpts from the Koran with depictions of Islamic violence. Following the lead of Great Britain, Denmark has postponed a conference on free speech to which Wilders was invited by the Danish People’s Party. The conference was scheduled for February, then delayed until June, the Copenhagen Post reports. “But now, according to information received by Berlingske Tidende newspaper, the conference has been delayed again because of government’s concern over Geert Wilders.” The Danish Foreign Ministry...

A shocking decision has been handed down by the National Public Radio board. In 1985, National Public Radio (NPR) adopted a policy stating that member stations had to provide "nonsectarian, non-political, noncommercial" educational programming. But in February 2009, the wording was changed to say: "NPR Member Stations shall provide ONLY [emphasis added] nonsectarian, non-political, noncommercial educational content on all broadcast channel(s) and related media distribution platforms such as member partners that use the NPR member brands." The rule, which takes effect May 1, means that any NPR stations carrying religious programming must cease and desist that programming as of that...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Pakistani Daily: Taliban Vow To ‘Reform’ Media And Banking The Taliban have vowed to ‘reform’ the media and banking system as a next step in their Islamization program, according to a Pakistani daily. In recent years, the Taliban had mainly attacked barbers’ shops for shaving beards, music centers for selling CDs and videos and girls’ schools. According to a report in Lahore-based newspaper Daily Times, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said their next target will be the banking system where "un-Islamic affairs are being carried out." The spokesman added that the...

Gay victims of violence would gain new federal protections under a revived and expanded hate crimes bill passed by the House. Conservatives strongly objected but lacked the votes to stop the legislation. The bill could provide a financial bonanza to state and local authorities, with federal grants to help pay for prosecution of hate crimes. The federal government could step in and prosecute if states requested it or declined to exercise their authority. A weaker bill died two years ago under a veto threat from President George W. Bush. But President Barack Obama urged support before the vote. Democratic Sen....

The House this afternoon passed an expanded hate crimes bill that would protect gay victims, and its chief sponsor in the Senate called for prompt final action. The measure passed 249-175 over the objections of conservatives, the Associated Press reports.

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 28, 2009 STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT ON H.R. 1913, THE LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT OF 2009 This week, the House of Representatives is expected to consider H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance – legislation that will...

Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee today rejected an opportunity to protect Christian pastors who preach the biblical condemnation of homosexuality and approved on a 15-12 vote a "hate crimes" bill that supporters admit could be used to bring charges against religious leaders. The bill, H.R. 1913, now will be considered by the full House of Representatives. The committee rejected a number of amendments offered by several members seeking to protect religious liberty, to protect the unborn, to protect against violence by illegal aliens, and to clarify the bill's meanings of "gender identity" and "sexual orientation." One of the...

Brazilian Ministry of [in]Justice of the Lula administration wants strict control on Internet Julio SeveroTruth should be shown so that people may know what is happening.However, in Brazil major television networks refuse flatly to defend truth, covering up important information about the moral, financial and ethical corruption of the most corrupt government in the history of Brazil.By coincidence, this government is socialist.Over the media the Lula administration has a nice and attractive ”censorship”: when a TV network is well-behaved, state companies are nice with it, making big investments in sponsorship of TV shows.It is very easy to keep the “independent”...

A Texas congressman who is a former judge warns that the "hate crimes" legislation reintroduced in the U.S. House could potentially lead to the arrest of Christian pastors who speak out against sexual immorality. Representatives John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) are sponsoring the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (H.R. 1913), also known as the "Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act." The bill would add sexual orientation to the list of categories covered under federal hate crime law. When Democrats passed the bill in 2007, they were divided over whether to add "gender identity and expression" to the...

For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem. But now an equally troubling trend is developing...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairman Michael Copps said Wednesday he intends to act boldly to help improve the diversity of broadcasters in the U.S. "Today we commit to getting independent and credible information to gird what I intend to be meaningful action to right the injustice" of the lack minority- and women-owned broadcasters in the U.S., Copps said at an FCC meeting. The FCC approved a proposal to improve data collection about broadcasting entities owned by women and minorities. The FCC voted to expand the number of broadcast entities that must file data to the commission about the...

Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan is raising cain over Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen becoming NATO Secretary General. He cites "lingering anger" of Muslims over Danish cartoons of Muhammed, and Rasmussen's defense of freedom of speech in that regard. Muslim majority countries are urging Turkey,[sadly a NATO member], to veto Rasmussen's nomination. This is another good reason why Turkey should not be in the EU.

SNIPPET: "The proposal by Pakistan had drawn strong criticism from free-speech campaigners and liberal democracies. A simple majority of 23 members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council voted in favor of the resolution. Eleven mostly Western nations opposed it and 13 countries abstained." SNIPPET: "The council is dominated by Muslim and African countries. Muslim nations have argued that religions, in particular Islam, must be shielded from criticism in the media and other areas of public life. They cited cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as an example of unacceptable free speech. "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations...

Today the UN's human-rights council approved a proposal by Muslims nations Thursday urging passage of laws around the world to protect religion Islam from criticism. The resolution urges states to provide: "protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general." Ironically most of the Muslim countries that submitted the proposal, BAN the practice of any non-Muslim religions in their countries, sometimes with the threat of Jail or even worse. The real purpose of this proposal is to ban any negative talk about Islam. "Defamation of religions is the...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday that she supports an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.” The amendment’s language is viewed by many media experts as a means to regulate conservative talk radio, particularly popular programs such as the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Mark Hannity Show, among many others. House Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a former radio broadcaster and one of...

Durban II - the UN "anti-racism" conference scheduled for April 20, 2009 in Geneva - is fast approaching. Well aware that the U.S. could undermine the credibility of this global human rights hoax instantaneously by deciding not to go, the Obama administration has still not announced its intentions. Canada and Israel have pulled out and, at the highest levels, Israel has asked President Obama not to attend. What lies behind the U.S.'s delay? For one, Obama is making new friends. The administration's decision last week to participate in planning meetings for Durban II was very well received by the Organization...

SNIPPET: "Critics of the Durban Review Conference (“Durban II”) view the OIC -- whose members account for 57 of the U.N.’s 192 member states -- as the leading instigator of a campaign to use the gathering to attack Israel, Jews, Western counter-terrorism initiatives and freedom of expression. Those critics are calling on democracies to join Israel and Canada in boycotting the conference. The Bush administration, which withdrew in protest from the original Durban conference in 2001, shunned the Durban II preparatory process, but left a decision on whether to participate in the April 20-24 conference to its successor." SNIPPET: "The...

The American Family Association (AFA), a pro-family group based in Mississippi, has encountered resistance in its attempts to air a television special called Speechless: Silencing the Christians. According to the website SilencingChristians.com, the majority of Americans get their information about the homosexual movement from Hollywood and the secular news media -- outlets that deliver what AFA says is a message "tainted by pro-homosexual propaganda." That is why the pro-family group produced the 14-episode Speechless series that initially aired on the INSP Network, and then put together a one-hour special based on the series. AFA is now buying prime-time slots on...

(CNSNews.com) – Acting Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps says he doesn’t support bringing back the controversial Fairness Doctrine, but he does think government has a role in enforcing media “diversity.” That role includes re-examining licensing and other regulations for radio stations -- including AM stations dominated by talk radio -- to make them “more reflective” of public interests.

SNIPPET: "The editor and publisher of a top English-language Indian daily have been arrested on charges of "hurting the religious feelings" of Muslims. The Statesman's editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha were detained in Calcutta after complaints." SNIPPET: "The article was entitled: "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?" It concerns the erosion of the right to criticise religions."

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is pushing for return of the Fairness Doctrine even as some of his Democratic colleagues are quietly backing off the idea. Originally instituted in 1949 by the FCC, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters over the public airwaves to give equal time to opposing political views.

First Amendment: Beyond the various threats that President Obama has said require confrontation — financial, military, nuclear, climate — another danger looms large: Those in his party who want government to muzzle dissent.A lot has changed in the two decades since the federal government stopped requiring broadcast licensees to provide varied viewpoints within their programming. Talk radio, for instance, has become a counterweight to the liberal establishment media. Blogs have allowed anyone and everyone to become a pundit with no limit to the number of readers who can be reached. And Fox News has overwhelmed CNN and the Big Three...

The Amsterdam Court of Appeals has ordered the criminal prosecution of a Dutch Member of Parliament for criticizing Islam. The court’s ruling overturns a previous decision by Dutch public prosecutors, who had determined that there was not enough evidence to charge Geert Wilders, leader of the conservative Freedom Party, for hate crimes after he produced a hard-hitting film that says Islam promotes violence. In a written judgment, the appeals court said that “by attacking the symbols of the Muslim religion, [Wilders] also insulted Muslim believers.” The ruling will please the Dutch Muslim immigrant groups who asked the appeals court to...

The United States, Britain, and much of the West is slowly surrendering its right to freedom of speech in the face of threats of violence from Islam and in the face of a systematic campaign to demonize and even criminalize any criticism of Islam, Islamofascism, Islam Jihadism and all the rest. This process is well along the way, and that’s why it has been so well described in Robert Spencer’s book Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. Here’s one good example. You remember the violence set off by the publication of those Danish cartoons...

On Wednesday, freedom of speech in Europe took a new and devastating turn, as a Dutch appellate court ordered the prosecution of Geert Wilders, parliamentarian and filmmaker, charging him with "inciting hatred and discrimination" against Muslims for his film exposing the threat of radical Islam. This ruling comes a mere six months after the public prosecutor's office found Wilders' dialogue contributed to the debate on Islam and that he had not committed any criminal offense. Now, curiously, the court has done an about-face and decreed that charges may be brought against the politician, and that prosecuting him is somehow in...

Note: Video included. January 21, 2009 For hate speech -- after declining to do so last year, which means that Islamic supremacist groups in the Netherlands have kept up the pressure on lawmakers until they got the outcome they wanted. Hate speech, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and hate speech laws are tools in the hands of the powerful that they can use to silence the powerless and crush dissent. And make no mistake: even though the Muslims in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the West present themselves as embattled victims of racism and "Islamophobia," that...

An Ohio school district may be violating the constitutional rights of its students. Mason, Ohio, school officials sent an email to parents in advance of the presidential inauguration saying, "Inappropriate comments that may make other students, staff or families feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in school or on the bus will not be tolerated." The story by DaytonDailyNews.com featured examples of negative comments and actions made about the Obama administration after he was elected. The school's superintendent Kevin Bright added that even in a competitive election process, "our nation's greatness is displayed when all sides come together for a united country."...

Politically active Barack Obama supporters in Michigan have tried to silence criticism of the president-elect on a talk program at a community radio station by cutting its air time, the program host says. Officials with radio station WRHC told WND the dispute involved talk show host Martin Dzuris' coverage of local issues as well as national issues. But Dzuris explained in a lengthy interview with WND he attended at least one meeting where radio station officials discussed specifically how to reduce Dzuris' criticism of Obama, which has linked Obama's statements taken directly from his speeches to Marxism. Dzuris said one...

THE ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid to better police the internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said. Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites. "The more we seek international solutions to this stuff - the UK and the U.S. working together - the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as...

Over the past nine months, a major campaign promoted by member-states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and its Secretariat General has been aiming at forcing a declaration on "defamation of religion" on the United Nations. The OIC, influenced by radical ideologues including the International Union of Clerics headed by Sheikh Yusuf Qardawi, wants the UN to vote a law banning and punishing any criticism of religion in general and of critical debates about Islam in particular. Aside from obstructing reformers and suppressing democratic movements within Muslim societies, the OIC move will be used by Jihadi Terror networks...