Free Republic

Taylor Swift has drawn criticism over a cease-and-desist letter her lawyers sent a college student who uses publicly available flight data to track her private jet usage. As Breitbart News reported, the target of the threatened law suit runs social media accounts that follow her and other celebrities’ private jets to measure their carbon pollution levels — with Swift calling the issue a matter of “life or death.” Jack Sweeney, 21, received the missive in December which declared the 14-time Grammy award winner would “have no choice but to all legal remedies” if the accused did not stop his “stalking...

Outrageous – simply outrageous. How can the good people of Georgia take it? Corrupt Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is not willing to go in front of the Georgia legislature to testify about his actions in this year’s corrupted election in Georgia, but he is able to initiate an investigation into a county which uncovered issues with the Dominion voting machines. This morning we reported that the Georgia Secretary of State, Raffensperger won’t testify in front of the Georgia legislature today: However, Raffensperger is willing to go after a county in Georgia which uncovered major issues with the Dominion...

<p>SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon's elections director was abruptly fired in a text message by the secretary of state after he pointed out serious issues with the state's aging and vulnerable technology for running elections.</p> <p>Elections Director Stephen Trout learned in a text message Thursday night — as his department and county elections officials were still counting votes from the Nov. 3 election — that he was out.</p>

Democrats control both houses of the California State Legislature with 2/3 majorities, allowing them to pass any bills they wish, with no possibility of obstruction from the powerless GOP. As Democrats will when they feel empowered, they recently passed a major hike in gasoline taxes that will take over $5 billion a year more from the pockets of motorists. With the GOP powerless, what could possibly go wrong? ===== [snip] Caught by surprise, the California Dems reacted stupidly. ====== [snip] But trying to quash a recall election following a tax increase, and dragging three kids into court looks really bad...

Subpoena demands Exxon correspondence with Heritage, Cato, Mercatus, Hoover, and Reason, among others The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is targeting dozens of conservative and libertarian organizations in a racketeering lawsuit against climate change skeptics that has been widely described as an effort to silence political opponents. In a subpoena issued in March, the office of USVI attorney general Claude Walker demanded from Exxon Mobil copies of communications between the oil company and 90 different political and policy organizations “and any other organizations engaged in research or advocacy concerning Climate Change or policies.”

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) in a discovery dispute with the National Abortion Federation. CMP is the group of citizen journalists responsible for producing the undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s practice of selling baby parts. This decision may end up being a costly one for CMP because it allows the National Abortion Federation to attempt to bury the group with discovery requests. Discovery is a pre-trial procedure in which parties can seek to obtain evidence for their case. The National Abortion Federation filed a federal lawsuit in California in...

This column originally appeared in the January 27th print edition of National Review: America is a land of acronyms, and, useful as they are, acronyms can quickly curdle into jargon. SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation" — i.e., using legal action to cow an opponent into silence, and withdrawal from the public square. It was coined in the Eighties by Penelope Canan and George W. Pring at the University of Denver, and in the Nineties they turned it into a book: SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. And it proved so influential that by the Oughts various jurisdictions...

The temptation to bully can be too great to resist.If you don't like something or the someone who's done that something, you want to squish them -- if you're bigger than they are, that is.One method often used is to get a fancy lawyer to write a cease-and-desist letter, designed to stop the recipient from breathing.The township of West Orange, N.J., decided that Jake Freivald was a nail for its hammer. He had exercised sufficient temerity to operate a Web site called WestOrange.info. It's not a fancy site. And it certainly doesn't purport to have any affiliation with the township....

A woman is facing a $750,000 defamation lawsuit and has been ordered to alter a negative Yelp review of a home contractor after police found that her claims didn’t add up. Dietz Development is claiming that Jane Perez’s scathing review has cost them new customers and, on Wednesday, a judge ordered a preliminary injunction for her to edit the post. Yelp and legal critics are worried that Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP)-related lawsuits could chill free speech, but business owners say that legal intervention is necessary in an age when online reviews can make or break a company. As...

Olympia Food Co-op files motion to strike lawsuit brought against them by members who objected to decision to initiate boycott of Israeli goods. NEW YORK – A food co-op board of directors Tuesday filed a motion in Washington state to strike a lawsuit brought against them by five members who objected to the co-op’s decision to initiate a boycott of Israeli goods. In 2010, the Olympia Food Co-op board passed a resolution to boycott Israeli goods, and then became the first grocery store in the United States to officially boycott them. The co-op is a member-based, not-for-profit, natural food grocery...

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart has failed in his attempt to knock out a defamation lawsuit by former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, who is suing on grounds that a video of her was deceptively edited to portray her as racist. Breitbart attempted to leverage DC’s new anti-SLAPP law by claiming Sherrod’s lawsuit was an impingement on his free speech, but a federal judge has denied that motion as well as another to move the case to California. Sherrod is suing Breitbart, Breitbart’s colleague Larry O’Connor and an unnamed defendant over the release of a video clip and accompanying...

Democratic lawmakers in Washington State sued the state yesterday in a desperate attempt to establish a means of raising taxes on Washingtonians. This myopic lawsuit will overturn Initiative 1053, a voter-approved requirement that two-thirds of the Legislature must approve tax increases. The Democrats falsely and outrageously believe the voter-approved two-thirds requirement unconstitutionally prevents lawmakers from sucking the money out of Washingtonians wallets for government funded projects. This lawsuit bucks the Washington State Constitution and the will of the people of the Evergreen State. According to the Washington State Constitution, Article I, Declaration of Rights, Section 1, Political Power: “All political...

Lawsuit would block public vote on federal health careby Kermit Miller Posted: 06.23.2010 at 6:07 JEFFERSON CITY, MO. -- Opponents of a ballot issue claiming state sovereignty over federal health care legislation have sued to block a public vote. Lawmakers approved a measure this year that would protect Missouri residents, who do not participate in a federally-approved health care plan, from financial penalties. "This is nothing more than an opportunity for the citizens of this state to make the decision on their own,” Rep. Tim Jones (R) said. “And that is where the decision should remain.” "What happened in Washington,...

Ratcheting up her offensive against the news media, Gov. Sarah Palin’s attorney threatened Saturday to sue mainstream news organizations if they publish “defamatory” stories relating to whether Palin is under federal investigation. In an extraordinary four-page letter, Alaska-based attorney Thomas Van Flein warns of severe consequences should speculation that until now has largely been confined to blogs about whether Palin embezzled funds in the construction of a Wasilla, Alaska, sports arena find its way into print. “This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and...

'Sanctions' sought in eligibility case President's attorneys file motion demanding birth, college records be withheld from public February 13, 2009 By Bob Unruh © 2009 WorldNetDaily A high-powered team of Los Angeles attorneys representing President Obama in his effort to keep his birth certificate, college records and passport documents concealed from the public has suggested there should be "monetary sanctions" against a lawyer whose clients have brought a complaint alleging Obama doesn't qualify for the Oval Office under the Constitution's demand for a "natural born" citizen in that post. The suggestion came in an exchange of e-mails and documents in...

HOWDY FREEPERS!!!!!!!This morning my op-ed focuses on one of Oklahoma's most well respected bloggers.Michael Bates is a well respected blogger who authors the blog Batesline (http://www.batesline.com) He also writes a column for an alternative media source, Urban Tulsa Weekly.When Michael composes a blog one of the things he always takes care to do is research his material for his blogs and get his facts straight.Recently, Mr. Bates was hit with a lawsuit by World Publishing Company, publishers of the Tulsa World. Apparently this had to do with a piece he composed on January 15 regarding the World's declining circulation.Now, here...

I never imagined that in America, I could be sued for speaking about politics. My ordeal began in early 2006 when my husband, Wes, and I heard about a petition being circulated seeking to annex our unincorporated neighborhood ... We researched the issue and decided that the extra layer of government wouldn't provide better services, while our sales tax would skyrocket. We'd be paying more for less. We own a print shop, so Wes used some scraps and made a couple of yard signs. One said "No Annexation" and the other said "Annexation Is A Permanent Tax Increase." We planted...

Kathleen Seidel is a New Hampshire mother of two. She runs a blog, Neurodiversity.com, about autism--a topic of special interest to her as one of her children had an "autistic spectrum diagnosis." There is a theory that thimerosal, a preservative formerly used in vaccines, causes autism. Seidel has written skeptically of that theory, and of the trial lawyers who have sought to cash in on it. Last month one of those lawyers, Clifford Shoemaker, had Seidel served with a subpoena demanding that she report for a deposition and produce a voluminous collection of documents, described in her motion to quash...

A packet for educators issued by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in conjunction with the NOVA program "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" encourages teaching practices that are probably unconstitutional, a conservative organization stated on Tuesday. "The NOVA/PBS teaching guide encourages the injection of religion into classroom teaching about evolution in a way that likely would violate current Supreme Court precedents about the First Amendment's Establishment Clause," said John West, vice president for public policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute, in a news release. The 22-page document is a companion piece to the two-hour NOVA docudrama, "Judgment Day,"...

GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TO SUE ... a parent? The government school district in Galveston, Texas is threatening to sue a parent for what the school district says is libelous material on the parent's website. http://news.galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=67e7147b74f58ff1 Sandra Tetley runs a site – www.gisdwatch.com – where she posts information about the local government school system and its officials. If she does not remove the statements from the website, the district plans to sue her. Tetley accuses trustees and administrators of breaking the law. Her group, Galveston Alliance for Neighborhood schools, has a history of criticizing the district for reconfiguring its middle schools, closing...