Free Republic

As people living in tents, RVs and makeshift shelters become a fact of life in neighborhoods far and wide, homelessness is now an all-consuming issue in Los Angeles County, with 95% of voters calling it a serious or very serious problem, according to a new poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Business Council Institute. The near-unanimous opinion that homelessness ranks as a top concern marks a sharp change from earlier surveys of Los Angeles voters over the past dozen years, said Fred Yang of Hart Research, the Washington, D.C., polling firm that conducted the survey....

In a major victory for privacy rights at the border, a federal court in Boston ruled today that suspicionless searches of travelers’ electronic devices by federal agents at airports and other U.S. ports of entry are unconstitutional. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry. “This ruling significantly advances Fourth Amendment protections for millions of international travelers who enter the United States every year,”...

The American Civil Liberties Union celebrated International Men’s Day by proclaiming its support for “men who get their periods” and men “who get pregnant and give birth.” The iconic civil-liberties organization used the awareness event, which takes place annually on Nov. 19, to wade into transgender issues and the redefinition of what a “man” is. “Men who get their periods are men,” ACLU’s official Twitter account told over 1.7 million followers Tuesday. “Men who get pregnant and give birth are men. Trans and non-binary men belong. #InternationalMensDay”

Christine Blasey Ford accepted the Robert Baldwin Courage Award on Sunday night from the Southern California chapter of the ACLU, thanking the organization for its “leadership in the struggle” in a rare public appearance since coming forward last year to accuse Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. “When I came forward last September, I did not feel courageous.” Blasey Ford said. “I was simply doing my duty as a citizen, providing information to the Senate that I believed would be relevant to the Supreme Court nomination process. I thought anyone in my position would of course do the...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In a rare public appearance to pick up an award, the woman who accused U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault says she had a responsibility to come forward, NBC News reports. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, spoke Sunday after she accepted the Rodger Baldwin Courage Award from the ACLU of Southern California in Beverly Hills. She said: “When I came forward last September, I did not feel courageous. I was simply doing my duty as a citizen. I understood that not everyone would welcome my information,...

Chesa Boudin, the urine-and-feces-plagued city’s incoming district attorney, pledged during the campaign not to prosecute public urination and other quality-of-life crimes if he was elected. Boudin declared victory Saturday night after results showed him winning a plurality of votes in the DA race. “We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes. Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted,” Boudin vowed in response to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) questionnaire during the campaign. “Many of these crimes are still being prosecuted, we have a long way to go to decriminalize...

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to approve a measure that would shake up the Copyright Office if it were made into law, creating a small claims court where online content creators can go after their infringers. The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act, or the CASE Act for short, was approved by 410-6 vote. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) introduced the measure last year with the goal of giving graphic artists, photographers, and other content creators a more efficient pathway toward receiving damages if their works are infringed. Under current law, all copyright suits must go through the...

We’ve reported on states changing laws to allow felons to vote. Then you’ve got California releasing murderers because it “feels right” to give them another chance. Now, in another sign that the inmates are running the prison, the governor of California has approved “The Right to a Jury of Your Peers”. It’s a move that will allow people with a prior felony conviction to serve on juries in California for the first time. Prior to this, there was a law in California that excluded felons from jury service. Local media backed the legislation ... The state Assembly approved the legislation...

Videos at link. Advocates for immigrant rights in Oregon plan to ask a state committee Friday to approve a rule banning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from making wholesale arrests of immigrants at or around the state’s courthouses. Upset over immigration arrests at courthouses has flared since Donald Trump was elected president. Within days of Trump taking office in January 2017, advocates for immigrants began reporting some highly public arrests or attempted arrests by ICE agents who were wearing plainclothes and offered little or no explanation. Advocates say the arrests have had a chilling effect on immigrants who now...

Mark S. Zaid, the activist attorney representing the so-called whistleblower at the center of the impeachment movement targeting President Donald Trump, advocated for Robert S. Mueller III to become an anti-Trump whistleblower. On April 25, 2018, while Mueller’s Office of the Special Counsel was investigating ultimately collapsed claims of collusion between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign, Zaid co-authored an oped in the New York Times calling for Mueller and his staff to become “lawful whistle-blowers.” The scheme outlined by Zaid was an option to be implemented if Trump had moved to fire Mueller and dismantle the Special Counsel’s office. Zaid...

A California judge is crippling the nation’s immigration enforcement system, amid the myriad examples of murders and crimes committed by illegal migrants, ICE director Matt Albence said at a White House press conference. Immigration enforcement is “being singled out and marginalized in ways that no other federal law enforcement organization has to tolerate,” he said. “Tying our hands from the bench does not make our country any safer.” The judge’s action was prompted by an ACLU lawsuit, which argued that some U.S. citizens were being misidentified as migrants by police databases. The judge announced September 27 he would end ICE’s...

September 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A former member of Congress is calling on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to audit several left-wing activist groups over their charity arms’ association with a progressive organization he claims is “weaponizing” charitable giving for political purposes. This week, former rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) spoke to Bill Bennett, former education secretary and Fox Nation host, about concerns he detailed earlier this month in a Fox News op-ed about Grassroots Campaigns, a for-profit “progressive” voter canvassing organization that has worked with Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)....

The open borders lobby, partially funded by billionaire George Soros, is supporting elected Democrats’ demands to impeach President Trump. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leads Democrats’ efforts to impeach Trump over a phone conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, open borders organizations like United We Dream are backing the plan. Online, United We Dream posted to their Twitter account that the impeachment of Trump is “the right thing to do,” writing further that their open borders activists are “with the millions of people telling the truth about Trump and the Members of Congress who have said enough is enough!”...

Israel, which has experienced much terrorism, both within its borders and against its citizens around the world, is generally acknowledged to be expert in the field of aviation security. To say that Israel takes such matters seriously, especially at its airports and onboard the planes of its flag carrier, El Al, would be an understatement. So: Can the U.S., with its gargantuan air transportation system, learn anything from Israel when it comes to aviation security? The short answer is “yes,” but with caveats. For starters, let’s look at how security at the airport level – which is where most flyers...

PORTLAND, Ore. — The ACLU of Oregon has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a protester who said she was "permanently disfigured" because of flashbang munitions fired into a group. The organization announced the lawsuit at a news conference Monday morning in their downtown Portland office. The incident alleged in the complaint filed Monday, Aug. 5, in the Multnomah County Circuit Court occurred during a clash of counter-protests at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland on Aug. 4, 2018. The civil complaint filed on behalf of Fawcett, 53, alleges she, "neither engaged with PPB Officers nor provoked this attack....

Missouri's eight-week abortion ban was temporarily blocked from being implemented by a federal judge on Tuesday. The regulation was scheduled to go into effect on Wednesday. State legislators in May passed the "Missouri Stands for the Unborn," act, a sweeping piece of anti-abortion legislation. In addition to banning the procedure after eight weeks into a woman's pregnancy, the legislation includes a "trigger law" and a ladder of less-restrictive time limits ranging from 14 to 20 weeks, depending on what the courts find to be constitutional. In late July, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Paul Weiss LLP —...

Is Democrat on Democrat shade is going mainstream? Probably not, but the Bill Maher/Rashida Tlaib feud is just the latest high-profile example of division within the ranks of the left, with potential ramifications involving the long-term loyalties of Jewish voters. Have Jewish liberals, who count among their rank’s notable Americans including Sarah Silverman, Bette Midler, Seth Rogan, Jon Stewart and so many other outwardly anti-Trump individuals, allowed the blind hatred they feel over the president, who has been a great ally to Israel and American Jews, to take precedence over their religious values? The issue inflaming tensions between Maher and...

That didn't take long. A former Obama adviser set the stage for a potentially nasty confirmation fight in the Senate next year within an hour of the Supreme Court announcing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently completed three weeks of radiation treatment after doctors found a localized cancerous tumor on her pancreas. * * * Ginsburg, who is 86, has battled various illnesses over the last 20 years. The Supreme Court said in a statement Friday that she “tolerated the treatment well" and concluded that there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in her body.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK)- Last week ICE raids were carried out in West Virginia, now the ACLU-WV is looking to hire a full-time candidate who can help the immigrant community. “This is something that’s going on frequently here in West Virginia,” said Billy Wolfe, Communications and Development Director for ACLU-WV. According to ACLU-WV undocumented immigrants are 7.7 times more likely to be arrested by ICE in West Virginia than in the nation at large. That is why Wolfe from ACLU-WV says West Virginia needs someone committed to teaching the immigrant community about their rights. Over the weekend ACLU-WV held their first...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block a Trump administration policy that fast-tracks deportations of illegal aliens. The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of immigrant-rights groups We Count! and Make the Road New York, argues that President Donald Trump’s expansion of expedited removal has stripped immigrants of due process and has led to wrongful deportations. “Hundreds of thousands of people living anywhere in the U.S. are at risk of being separated from their families and expelled from the country without any recourse,” ACLU lawyer Anand Balakrishnan said in a prepared statement released Tuesday....