Free Republic

When a Senator speculated out loud about increased government control,he panicked many investors. The value of stocks is often a matter of perception-and people in power (and some posters) need to become aware of that. Speak freely, but THINK about what you say !

Our late colleague Jim Boulet last year unearthed the facts here and here and here on how the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) ‘localism' schemes could shut down or inhibit talk radio. Last Thursday, Ishmael Jones, nom de plume of a former officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) clandestine service, gave his take on the danger radio ‘localism' poses to free political speech in his American Thinker article "What the CIA's Censors Can Teach Us about Plans to Muzzle Talk Radio" here. Here is Ishmael Jones on this Administration and their possible ‘localism' approach to shutting down political speech on...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

Bummer! I ordered a yard sign on the Internet, a beautiful McCain-PALIN sign! I vote! I live in America! I live in the deep South, even! But I also live in a covenanted community, a golf-course community full of stepford wives and pissy no-tolerance types who run the Homeowners' Association. And I just read the following on their web site: Section 15. Signs. No signs shall be displayed upon any Lot or Living Unit other than a sign identifying the name of the contractor during construction of a dwelling . . . provided said sign meets the design criteria of...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The early reviews are in, and three federal judges appeared in agreement Thursday that a movie lambasting Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed an awful lot like a 90-minute campaign advertisement. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, is challenging the nation's campaign finance laws, which require disclaimers on political advertisements and restrict when they can be broadcast. The group argues ''Hillary: The Movie'' and related television advertisements are not political advertising even though the New York senator is in the presidential race. Attorney James Bopp argued that they should be considered ''issue-oriented'' speech because viewers aren't urged to vote...

Today I would like to discuss the proposed reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine in a way no one else has. First let me say there is another name for government regulating political speech to determine what is fit and proper and ensuring all sides of an issue are heard. It's called censorship. And it is not only anathema to all we hold dear in America, it is unconstitutional, totally at odds with the First Amendment and the founders' idea that there should be no bounds on political speech. Yet, there is a more practical objection to re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine...

DENVER -- Anson Rohr is known as an outspoken critic of global terrorism. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be enough to get a person fired. But Mr. Rohr says that's what happened after he hung an anti-terrorism poster at his work space, urged a religion professor to present a balanced view of Islam and generally made no secret of his conservative views at Front Range Community College. After he was fired last year from his job as an administrative assistant, Mr. Rohr sued college officials for violating his free-speech rights. Last week, he agreed to accept an undisclosed financial settlement.

When you look at GOA's year-ending report, you can see that your grassroots efforts had a tremendous impact upon the legislative process last year. There is no doubt that you guys have made a difference. That's why GOA is so concerned about legislation currently pending on the Senate floor which would attempt to intimidate organizations like GOA that work with members and friends to pressure Congress to support the Second Amendment. The legislation (S. 1) would regulate "grassroots lobbying" by requiring groups like us to monitor and report the amount of money we spend to exercise our First Amendment rights...

UNALLOYED good news is rare, so rejoice: The fore most achievement of the political speech regulators - a k a campaign finance "reformers" - is collapsing. Taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns, which was in parlous condition in 2004, will die in 2008. In 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush declined public funding - and its accompanying restrictions on raising and spending money - for the primaries, as did Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004. In 2004, candidates accepting taxpayer funding were restricted to spending $45 million before the conventions. Bush and Kerry raised $269.6 million and $234.6 million respectively...

Unalloyed good news is rare, so rejoice: The foremost achievement of the political speech regulators -- aka campaign finance ``reformers'' -- is collapsing. Taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns, which was in parlous condition in 2004, will die in 2008. In 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush declined public funding -- and its accompanying restrictions on raising and spending money -- for the primaries, as did Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004. In 2004, candidates accepting taxpayer funding were restricted to spending $45 million before the conventions. Bush and Kerry raised $269.6 million and $234.6 million respectively before the conventions....

Party's fiberglass pachyderm prohibited from Brookfield parade By LISA SINK lsink@journalsentinel.com Brookfield - Democrats can rejoice: This city's Independence Day parade will feature donkeys but no elephants. "Sparky," a 5-foot-tall, 100-pound fiberglass elephant purchased as the mascot for the Republican Party of Waukesha County will not be allowed in Brookfield's Fourth of July parade today, ending its four-year parade run. But the Wisconsin Donkey and Mule Society will return as a parade unit. That's because the donkey and mule society is not affiliated with the Democratic Party. The elephant mascot, however, violates Brookfield's ban on political parties as parade entries....

Pornography has returned to the airwaves of a UCSD student-run television station, despite a student leaders' vote earlier this week to ban nudity and sex. In a broadcast late Thursday night, Koala TV host and UCSD senior Steve York replayed footage of himself engaging in sex with an adult-film actress. This time, however, he retaliated against the student council members who are trying to limit his content. The actress' face was covered by the superimposed image of a student senator who was vocal in her support for the nudity and sex ban. York, 22, has said the episode is a...

A dozen anti-war activists from Mendocino County took their tops off at high noon in San Francisco's Union Square shopping district Thursday, using what they said was their best weapon to get the public's attention. ... Members of the Breasts Not Bombs contingent, which included seven women, three men and two young girls, said the war in Iraq is indecent, not their nakedness. After more than two years of opposition to the war, protesters are having a hard time grabbing headlines, said Sheba Love, size 40D...."Hey! Explain this to me!" said an agog visitor from Florida, approaching San Francisco police...

<p>Web loggers, who pride themselves on freewheeling political activism, might face new federal rules on candidate endorsements, online fundraising and political ads, though bloggers who don't take money from political groups would not be affected.</p> <p>Draft rules from the Federal Election Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws, would require that paid political advertisements on the Internet declare who funded the ad, as television spots do.</p>

Something remarkable is happening as a Republican Congress and president move to crackdown on 527 groups like the MoveOn.org Voter Fund and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: Liberals are realizing that something's fishy. Three years after the passage of McCain-Feingold (a.k.a. the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a. the End of Free Speech As We Know It), a smattering of Democrats and liberal activists are slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let the government decide who can and cannot engage in political speech. After all, what would prevent incumbents in Congress...

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - Lawmakers' pique over the networks' incredible shrinking news hole is prompting legislation that will both shorten the time broadcasters have between license renewals and require full commission review of 5% of all licenses. The legislation was introduced by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday after the release of a report by the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California found evening TV newscasts contained little coverage of local political campaigns last year. It also would require broadcasters to post on their Internet sites information detailing their commitment to local public-affairs programming, and it calls...

On last saturday night at a rental property we own on a major Highway in Michigan. Democrats stole 2 Bush/Cheney signs and then proceded to vandalize our property by replacing them with 2 kerry signs. Our tenant being very angry called us so we would know. My mom got a little angry and called the county Republican office to complain. After hearing her out they told her that it's very common this year and it's been happening all over.

They’re at it again, the right wing creeps who are happy to smear democrats, and even their own, like John McCain, are now one of their slimeballs, former Gov. Mark Racicot is suggesting that Kerry is losing it, that he’s wild-eyed, irresponsible.... Scott McClelland says Kerry is "losing his cool., should not be an excuse to lash out at the president with false and baseless attacks." Atrios quotes Racicot describing Kerry."I think they have comepletely unhinged..." and suggests that they used the same strategies, in 2000 to attack John McCain and to suggest he was unstable. This labeling of a...

8/20/2004 5:16:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk, Political Reporter Contact: Chad Clanton or Phil Singer, both of Kerry-Edwards 2004, 202-464-2800; Web: http://www.johnkerry.com WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Kerry-Edwards campaign spokesman Chad Clanton released the following statement today about the new Swift Boat Veterans for Bush ad: "This is another ad from a front group funded by Bush allies that is trying to smear John Kerry. The newest ad takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts. He testified as a 27 year-old Vietnam veteran. He opposed a war that, at that point, cost...

Does it strike anyone else as odd that the Supreme Court seems to be providing more First Amendment protection to pornography than to political speech? This seems to be a fair question following the Court's decision this week to frown upon, for the third time in eight years, a Congressional law attempting to protect minors from sexually explicit material on the Internet. In contrast, the same Court was only too happy last year to endorse the substantial limits on political speech that were part of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. Somehow we doubt this is what the Founders had in mind...

Sad day for freedomMona Charen (archive) December 12, 2003 | Print | Send On Dec. 10, 2003, freedom took two body blows. The first was the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to permit the limitation of political speech. This is not exotic dancing or flag burning. This is "Vote for Sam Smith" -- the beating heart of our democracy. The Supreme Court has just tied a gag around our mouths, and most of the intellectual class is delighted. Apologists obscure the crude reality of this repression by calling it "campaign finance reform." Well, you can call...

<p>Who could have imagined that the same Court which, within the past four years, has sternly disapproved of restrictions upon such inconsequential forms of expression as virtual child pornography, tobacco advertising, dissemination of illegally intercepted communications, and sexually explicit cable programming, would smile with favor upon a law that cut to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government.</p>

[Reading from an Associated Press wire story:] "A sharply divided..." There's nothing "sharply divided" about this. We got four liberals and we got two Republicans who read the editorial pages - or two conservatives who read the editorial pages - on the Supreme Court. Let me just stick with the details here, and then I will ad-lib my commentary and analysis after presenting to you the facts. "A sharply divided Supreme Court upheld key features of the nation's new law intended to lessen the influence of money in politics, ruling today that the government may ban unlimited donations to political...

In a tragic decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that jeopardizes a cardinal principle of the U.S. Constitution: free speech. Concerned Women for America's Chief Counsel Jan LaRue noted that the decision means less protection for political speech, the very speech the First Amendment aims to shield, than for pornography. The following article comes to us from the James Madison Center for Free Speech of Washington, D.C. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution mandates that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." Today the United States Supreme Court has...

<p>WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court (search) upheld key features of the nation's new law intended to lessen the influence of money in politics, ruling Wednesday that the government may ban unlimited donations to political parties.</p> <p>Those donations, called "soft money," had become a mainstay of modern political campaigns, used to rally voters to the polls and to pay for sharply worded television ads.</p>

GENEVA — Worried over U.S. domination, a group of developing nations wants to put control of the Internet into the hands of the United Nations, an issue that likely will overshadow a summit on information technology opening today. Key decisions on Internet issues, such as domain names and addresses, now reside in a private agency spun off from the U.S. government — and the United States wants to keep it that way. But if countries do not think their concerns are adequately heard by the Internet's key decision-makers, a U.N. official warned yesterday, they may create conflicting national policies and...

In June, Pacifica Radio's Los Angeles station, KPFK-FM, hosted a thirty-hour marathon of Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn's anti-Semitic "Afrikan Mental Liberation Weekend."  It was the first time this once-annual program appeared for almost a decade. It had been banned by station management in 1993, after a long, hard-fought pressure campaign to remove it.  Afrikan Mental Liberation Weekend typically includes claims that the Jews disproportionately participated in the slave trade and persecuted blacks; in the past, he responded to criticism by calling the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League a "psychotic, idiotic, European Jew."   He has regularly played tapes by Nation of...

If it's allowed to stand, an FCC ruling will feed media merger mania BY BILL CLINTON "It's your money," says President Bush when he promotes tax cuts. I disagree with his tax policy but admire his spin. The same argument applies with greater force to whether big media conglomerates should be allowed to control more television and radio stations: "It's your airwaves." The American people own the bandwidth that broadcast media companies use to deliver programs to our TV and radio sets. Because the space on that bandwidth is limited, the Federal Communications Commission regulates who has access to our...

Editor moves political signFriday, July 26, 2002THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAY CITY -- An editor at The Bay City Times returned to work Thursday after her husband agreed to remove a banner from their yard advertising his candidacy for county commissioner. Jalene Jameson, assistant metro editor for features at The Times, went on unpaid leave July 18 after the paper's editor told her she could not work there while a campaign sign was posted in her yard. The Times prohibits its journalists from political activity, including running for office, working on campaigns, making political donations or displaying campaign bumper stickers or...

Dario Herrera is a Democratic candidate for Congress from Nevada's newly created 3rd Congressional District. While Herrera will face opposition from Republican state Senator Jon Porter and Independent Party candidate Pete O'Neil, his most dangerous opponent may be a Nevada business owner turned political writer. That writer's website, darioslittleproblem.com contains a collection of "reports" about Herrera's alleged involvement in unethical business dealings and purported abuses of his position as chairman of the County Commission in Clark County, Nevada to gain financial and political benefit. The site links to stories in the Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review-Journal concerning...