Free Republic

The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism. Both seek to dominate society and to use state power to do so. Both seek to eliminate the Other -- for Islamic fanatics, that means non-Muslim religions and secularism; for secular fanatics, it means Christianity and virtually any public invoking of God. The Islamists impose Sharia law; the American Civil Liberties Union and the left generally impose secular law. The Taliban wiped out public vestiges of Buddhism in Afghanistan; the ACLU and its allies seek to wipe out public vestiges of Christianity in America...

The American Civil Liberties Union announced recently that it was suing the Obama administration to release records of the military’s “drone strikes in Yemen that killed terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki and other Americans.” I had to read the article twice to make sure I got it right -- I did. The “Americans” the United States was hunting down had renounced their U.S. citizenship long before in the most direct, absolute and unequivocal manner imaginable -- by becoming traitors to their country and openly and joyously reveling in their betrayal. The fact that the ACLU took up this cause didn’t surprise me....

MADISON — The state’s elections watchdog Tuesday announced it would release all 153,335 pages of recall petitions online, 24 hours after pausing to consider the impact of posting personal information about domestic violence victims. The decision comes after victims’ advocates and the state’s attorney general weighed in on the question. ‘Balancing test’ Following an analysis, the Government Accountability Board [1], or GAB, determined the petitions will be released, in accordance with Wisconsin law, as well as a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, “Doe v. Reed [2],” which involved the release of referendum petition in Washington state. “Unlike an elector’s vote,...

Democracy isn’t always pretty. Look no further than the nasty business surrounding Wisconsin’s recall campaigns for daily proof. The Kenosha teacher harassed and ostracized simply because she supports a governor that many of her peers don’t. Or the West Bend man charged with election fraud after allegedly trying to scribble out the names of recall petition signers in a reported burst of anger. Then there is, to many observers, the general childish behavior of lawmakers so swept up in partisan politics that they’ve forgotten that they’re in Madison to do the people’s business. There are a lot of people in...

MADISON — What’s in a million names? Wisconsin and the world were supposed to find out Monday. Now, the Government Accountability Board, or GAB, which oversees state elections and campaigns, is reportedly holding off posting the reported 1 million signatures on petitions seeking to recall Gov. Scott Walker due to privacy concerns. GAB spokesman Reid Magney told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday evening the board was holding off on posting the names online after hearing concerns about a stalking victim and others who did not want their names released. Earlier in the day, Magney told Wisconsin Reporter that the...

Madison - State election officials put off making recall petitions available publicly on Monday after hearing privacy concerns from people who signed them. The state Government Accountability Board provided copies of the petitions against Gov. Scott Walker to Walker's campaign on Friday and had said that it planned to post copies of them on its website on Monday. But agency spokesman Reid Magney said the board was holding off on posting them online after hearing concerns about a stalking victim and others who did not want their names released. Recall organizers say more than 1 million people signed petitions to...

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former CIA officer with repeatedly leaking classified information, including the identities of agency operatives involved in the capture and interrogation of alleged terrorists. The case against John Kiriakou, who served as a senior Senate aide after ending his CIA career, extends the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on disclosures of national security secrets to journalist. Kiriakou, who was among the first to go public with details about the CIA’s use of water-boarding and other harsh interrogation measures, was charged with disclosing classified information to reporters and lying to the agency about the origin of...

Years ago, many urban school districts around the country created ethnic studies programs in an effort to help minority students succeed in the classroom and learn about their heritage. The Tucson Unified School District in Arizona was no exception, considering about 61 percent of the student population there is Hispanic. The courses first started being offered a little more than ten years ago but top education officials in the state say the program has spiraled out of control in recent years because of failed oversight. Now the issue has a community divided. John Huppenthal, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, says...

The Virginia primary isn’t until March 6; who knows what will happen between now and then? Perhaps one or more candidates among Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum will have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure their names will appear on the Virginia ballot only to be out of the race by the beginning of March anyway.Nevertheless, those left out in the cold in Old Dominion haven’t given up without a fight — and it looks like they might win it after all. Recall that Perry has filed a ballot access lawsuit — in which he was...

“Life with Archie No. 16″ hits newsstands next week, featuring the interracial, same-sex wedding of character Lt. Kevin Keller, a white American soldier wounded in Iraq, and Clay Walker, the black physical therapist who helped him recover. Archie Comics CEO Jonathan Goldwater told CNN it’s part of a concerted effort to make Archie Andrews’ universe mirror the diversity and complexity of today’s world

URGENT: PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AT THIS LINK to show you Stand With Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and AGAINST the political witchhunt of Obama's Department of Justice. This Administration and its open-borders allies La Raza, MALDEF and the ACLU, will stop at nothing to try and destroy the most prominent national symbol in the fight against illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe will not back down. Please sign the petition to show we stand behind him. [UPDATE: The ACLU already has a petition calling for Arpaio's resignation with 16,911 signatures, and rising fast as LA RAZA and The People for the American Way...

Last week, I documented more than a dozen ways in which, in just the past six months, the Obama administration is trampling on the religious liberties of America's finest military service members. (If you haven't read Part 1, you can find it at creators.com.) I am very disappointed by the dissolution of religious liberties in the U.S. military. Times have sadly and radically changed since my father served in World War II, since I served four years in the Air Force and since my two brothers, Wieland and Aaron, served in the Army in Vietnam. (My brother Wieland paid the...

For a number of Americans, the Christmas season is a time for joy and love, but for others, it’s an opportunity to stage a war against Christianity. The latest battle entails a blasphemous nativity scene from a group of atheists, which they have defended as a response to counteract the Christian “War on the Constitution.”  Wisconsin is once again at the center of a major dispute, this time because Governor Scott Walker made the mistake of referring to the “holiday” spruce as a “Christmas tree.” That prompted the Freedom from Religion Foundation to call Walker “a Teabagger governor wearing religion...

The big black letters on the water tower that looms over this small South Jersey town announce “Everybody likes Pitman.” Except that someone doesn’t. Or so say many of the borough’s residents. Located just 17 miles southeast of Philadelphia, the Gloucester County town has the rural feel of fictional Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life” — the kind of town where the barber shop is called just that in a window sign and has a working barber pole spinning out front. There is no snow on the ground, but wreaths encircle lamp posts like halos, the marquee in front...

Is it racist to require people to show a photo ID when they vote? You need a photo ID for nearly any meaningful transaction, such as cashing checks, including government checks. If this simple requirement “suppresses� the vote, maybe we need to ask why it’s such a great idea to push for universal suffrage for every adult who is merely breathing. Of course, even this latter requirement would suppress the vote in Chicago and New Orleans, where dead people get to vote all the time – and do so cheerfully! In a speech Tuesday at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library...

The name Theodore Schroeder probably seems like an obscure name to anybody who comes across my blog or happens to be a regular reader. I know it was obscure to me, when I came across a book titled Free Speech for Radicals. Written in 1916, this book is linked with a group which titled itself The Free Speech League.(FSL) The more I dug, the more I realized I found something worth blogging about. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (a place I normally wouldn't want anything to do with) has quite a bit of information about Schroeder Friends with anarchist Emma...

Putting Christ back into Christmas... or else! _______________________________________________________________________ What a great idea... and beautifully produced and performed by vocalist Carrie Rinderer and the American Christian Life United (ACLU!) Choir... Video/more at Reaganite Republican_______________________________________________________________________ ~Say 'Merry Christmas'~ If you don’ see merry Christmas in the window, no you don’t go in that store If you don’t see merry Christmas in the window, yes you walk right by that door Oh it’s all about the little baby Jesus and my Savior’s birthIt’s the one and only reason that we celebrate the season wishing love to all and; peace upon the earth...

Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions: The sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular "holiday" tree. The ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman. The familiar strains of every hack columnist's "war on Christmas" column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing "Winter Wonderland" ... This year has been a choice year. A crucified skeleton Santa Claus was erected as part of the "holiday" display outside the Loudoun County courthouse in Virginia...

NEWS RELEASE Sheriff’s Response to DOJ Letter December 15, 2011 (Maricopa County, AZ) The following statements were made by Sheriff Joe Arpaio during a press conference held on 12/15/11 in response to the 22 page Department of Justice letter received 1 hour prior to DOJ press conference. “Before we get started today, I want to say something to the citizens of Arizona and the rest of the nation. On the surface, it may appear that today’s findings and actions by our federal government are directed towards this Sheriff and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The truth of the matter is...

The biggest opponent of the state's new voter ID law just may be an 84-year-old woman who stands less than 5 feet tall, has lived in the same house nearly her entire life and has served on her Village Board since 1996. Ruthelle Frank doesn't have a driver's license, doesn't have a birth certificate and hasn't been able to get a state identification card, which means that she could be out of luck the next time she tries to vote. "The whole thing upsets me," Frank said Wednesday. "You could live in the U.S. of A., live in the same...

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the State of Wisconsin on Tuesday over a new law requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification, charging that the measure violates the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit says that the state is infringing on some citizens' right to vote and to be treated equally under the law and amounts to a kind of poll tax on voters who lack the documents needed to get an approved ID. Republican lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker, who is named in the lawsuit along with a long list of other state officials, have said they believe the measure...

The University of Minnesota sent employees its seasonal celebration guidelines for office activities. The school recommends using "winter celebration" as terminology instead of "holiday party." Also they say to keep decorations, music, and food general, not specific to any religion. The University says the policy mirrors federal guidelines.

Police officers in Los Angeles stormed Augusta Millender’s home early one morning in 2003. They were looking for Ms. Millender’s foster son, Jerry Bowen, and for a shotgun he had used in a domestic assault. They found neither. But they did seize a gun owned by Ms. Millender, who was 73. The gun was legal, and she said she kept it for self-defense. Scalia, “If he’s so stupid that he executes a warrant that no reasonable officer could think was correct,” the justice said of a hypothetical officer, “he’s in the pot, right?” Both the National Rifle Association and the...

We now have a clearer picture of what the "occupy" movement has planned for their version of a new America... and it's a society that is riddled with drug crimes, sexual assaults, arguments, third world conditions and racism. Proudly solidified in the the ACLU's brief introduction, filed in the Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of the Occupy Boston movement, is a rather twisted vision of what the movement insists is "what Democracy should look like." Citizens walking by Dewey Square on Atlantic Avenue - or stopping in at Occupy Boston to satisfy their curiosity about what Occupy Boston is all...

(CNN) -- Siri can help you find drugstores and bars, but the iPhone 4S digital assistant is clueless when it comes to the locations of abortion clinics, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The advocacy group this week launched an online petition asking people to send e-mails to Apple saying that "if Siri can tell us about Viagra, it should not provide bad or no information about contraceptives or abortion care. Send a message to Apple: Fix Siri." "Although it isn't clear that Apple is intentionally trying to promote an anti-choice agenda, it is distressing that Siri can point...

According to the author, this will be the last year he posts this....copy it and pass it on. EVERY WHO DOWN IN WHOVILLE LIKED CHRISTMAS A LOT, BUT THE GRINCH, WHO LIVED JUST NORTH OF WHOVILLE, DID NOT. THE GRINCH HATED CHRISTMAS THE WHOLE CHRISTMAS SEASON. NO ONE KNOWS WHY, NO ONE KNOWS QUITE THE REASON. IT COULD HAVE BEEN THAT THE GRINCH WAS JEW, BUT HE WASN’T THE GRINCH SIMPLY HATED EACH WHO. HE HATED THEM ALL SINCE THEY ALL SEEMED SO HAPPY AND THE GRINCH'S ..........

The ACLU has sued the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority and CEO Michael Ford over the agency’s refusal to accept an advertisement calling for a boycott of Israel from pro-Palestinian activist Blaine Coleman of Ann Arbor.The lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Detroit alleges AATA violated Coleman’s First Amendment right to free speech and 14th Amendment right to due process. It argues AATA’s policy is vague and overly broad. It asks the court to order AATA to display the advertisement under the same terms offered to other advertisers and to award Coleman damages, court costs and reasonable attorney fees...Coleman sent...

IF YOU THOUGHT POLICE BRUTALITY WAS BAD … WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE WHAT CONGRESS WANTS TO DO NEXT WEEK The police brutality against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and elsewhere is bad enough. But next week, Congress will vote on explicitly creating a police state. The ACLU’s Washington legislative office explains: The Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a...

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and...

Cross Removed From San Antonio Tower By Brittany Smith | Christian Post Reporter It was a small cross, but it has created a big debate in San Antonio. The “Torre de Esperanza,” or Tower of Hope, stands close to the entrance of Texas A&M University-San Antonio. The tower’s private owners put a small cross on the structure consistent with its Spanish mission-style design. They also allowed the school to put its seal on the structure. The cross, however, was recently removed. The ACLU of Texas said the developer of the tower, Ralph Lampman of the VTLM Group, ordered the crosses...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota sued Hennepin County on Monday on behalf of OccupyMPLS, the protest group camping out on the Government Center Plaza in downtown Minneapolis in defiance of county rules. The ACLU suit contends that those rules, which forbid tents and electricity, and “certain unwritten procedures enforced by the county” violate the demonstrators’ free speech rights. … The suit asks that new rules restricting the use of chalk, electricity and tents be declared unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are also seeking an injunction against the rules, and they want the county to provide electricity for the protesters. It...

by John HillStand With Arizona The war against Alabama's immigration law has intensified in recent weeks, with a Justice Department lawsuit, visits by DOJ officials, and a showdown over illegal alien children who have been pulled from Alabama schools. Eric Holder sued Alabama, trying to block every aspect of its enforcement provision. Why has the Administration and their ACLU and La Raza allies frantically tried to stop Alabama's law from being enforced? Because it's WORKING - and putting legal Alabamans back to work. As illegals have fled the state by the tens of thousands, the jobs they took -...

The House Judiciary Committee hosted a Department of Homeland Security oversight hearing last Wednesday with Secretary Janet Napolitano. As you may recall, the House Homeland Security Committee shares a certain amount of legislative jurisdiction with the House Judiciary Committee regarding the Department of Homeland Security. While the Homeland Security Committee covers border security issues, most immigration legislation is covered by the Judiciary Committee. As a result, during the authorization process, the Secretary of Homeland Security is often called to testify before two committees. It’s not a fun process for the Secretary to get grilled and asked obscure questions. I might...

...U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles said the lawsuit filed Monday is aimed at protecting the federal government's constitutional role in enforcing immigration laws and ensuring people are treated equally. The lawsuit names [Republican Gov. Nikki] Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, as a defendant. The American Civil Liberties also has filed a lawsuit challenging the law. [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry said in a statement that he strongly supports South Carolina's law "in light of the federal government's failure to secure our borders and deal with this important public safety issue. Because the federal government has not secured the border, each...

Another 19 participants in the Occupy Sacramento movement made their first court appearance today on charges that they violated late-night curfews at Cesar Chavez Park. snip Cres Vellucci, vice chair of the local American Civil Liberties Union board and a spokesman for the protesters in Sacramento Superior Court today, said "everyone's going to plead not guilty" and ask for a jury trial.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- The heavy Tennessee Highway Patrol presence and curfew enforcement on Legislative Plaza came to a sudden and unexpected stop Saturday night, and by Sunday morning, Occupy Nashville protesters declared it a victory on The Hill. "At 4:30 in the morning, I walked around congratulating everybody that we took The Hill, said Clay Wright who proudly waved his Occupy Nashville flag on the steps of Legislative Plaza. "The people, the people own Legislative Plaza, and that's the way it needs to be recognized," said Wright. But a sign with a curfew enforcement states otherwise. Enforced since Thursday, it's put...

While Los Angeles politicians have started to tell protesters camped on City Hall's lawn that they might be overstaying their welcome, our Californian neighbors to the North in Oakland and the South in San Diego are really struggling with police efforts to shut down a 24/7 presence by protesters. This morning police cleared out Occupy San Diego, and arrested 51 stragglers after they were told to skedaddle from the encampment at Civic Center Plaza and Children’s Park where they have made their home for three weeks. The reasons police gave were that conditions were getting unsanitary: too much human and...

As Alabama is besieged on all sides by lawsuits from the Dept. of Justice, ACLU and Mexican Government, their new H.B. 56 immigration law is having big results. Marshall County, AL sheriff's deputies arrested Juan Vargas, 28, of Huntsville, on a warrant for 1st degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 12, according to Sheriff Scott Walls. When deputies checked on Vargas' immigration status, it was learned that he is in the United States illegally from his native country of Guatemala. Busted is just one in a long line of illegal alien child rapists tormenting America. VIDEO...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims the FBI targets specific American communities across the United States based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion for “assessments” and possible criminal investigation. Citing records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU alleges that FBI agents identified Chinese and Russian communities in San Francisco as a place to look for organized crime syndicates and Arab-American and Muslim communities in Michigan as a possible terrorist recruitment ground, among others. The ACLU calls this practice “racial profiling on an industrial scale” and has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to ban it. But...

<p>The workers drive the company's rental cars to and from the airport for cleaning and refueling. They are among 34 Hertz employees suspended Sept. 30 for failing to clock out before breaks.</p> <p>The Seattle Times reports that Hertz says nine of the 34 signed the agreement and have returned to their jobs.</p>

SAN DIEGO -- A full panel of federal judges has declined to rehear the case of a war memorial cross in a public park in San Diego that has been deemed unconstitutional by the court. A group fighting to preserve the monument announced Monday that the 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied its request. Five of the judges dissented, stating the cross should stay. A three-judge panel in January ruled that the cross conveys a message of religion and is unconstitutional. Kelly Shackelford says her organization will appeal to the Supreme Court. Shackelford is an...

By Kevin “Coach” Collins The bully is now the bullied. The ACLU has traded one master (liberalism) for another – Islam. They are far more frightened of their new masters’ swords than Christians’ pens. The ACLU has tipped its hand giving us positive proof of what we always thought they were: feckless twerps and enemies of our freedoms. Since their pinup girl Madelyn Murray O’Hare forced God out of our government schools, the ACLU has been on a relentless crusade to “cleanse” our public and private lives of anything THEY deem violations of their idea of the relationship between Church...

Nothing tests our humanity - or our democracy - more than how we respond to tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families of victims of crimes. We are horrified when we learn the details of their suffering. But emotions alone are not a sound basis for making policy, particularly when it comes to keeping our communities safe and free. Recent events involving immigrants accused of committing terrible crimes is the most recent case in point. One such tragedy was the death of a local Milford man, Matthew Denice, who was hit and dragged by a pickup truck driven by...

Today, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a video condemning the killing of al Qaeda's Anwar Al-Aulaqi saying he is an American citizen and did not receive due process. The ACLU writes: "Today in Yemen, U.S. air strikes killed American citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi. Al-Aulaqi has never been charged with a crime. Last year, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights represented Al-Aulaqi's father in a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. We argued that such killings violate the Constitution and international law, but the...

A Federal District Judge today upheld most of Alabama's new immigration enforcement law, H.B. 56. This ruling meaning those provisions are now in effect while lawsuits from parties as varied as the U.S. Department of Justice, ACLU, left-wing religious groups and - outrageously - the Mexican Government, move forward in her courtroom. Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn's ruling represents a defeat for Eric Holder, as the main provision was upheld. And it represents a major victory for the people of Alabama, for Stand With Arizona, whose attorneys helped draft the legislation, and for Americans in other states trying to pass similar,...

September 21 at 6:30 PM, the Ground Zero Mosque will open its doors to show a photo exhibit in its community space. Park51 is hoping to discourage its opponents by declaring an early victory in spite of its recent embarrassments and setbacks. This grand opening does not mean that the fight is over. The project still has a long way to go until completion.

A coalition of civil rights groups will file documents with the Department of Justice tomorrow accusing Texas Gov. Rick Perry of intentionally discriminating against black and Hispanic voters by backing and signing a strict new voter identification law earlier this year. Voter ID has emerged as an increasingly hard-fought partisan issue, with Republicans across the country pushing laws they say will combat possible vote fraud, while Democrats say their real effect will be to keep voters who don't have ID - mostly the poor - away. The new law requires voters to show drivers licenses, passports, or other federal or...

A Florida law requiring welfare recipients to pass a drug test before receiving benefits is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU contends that the law is an unconstitutional “search and seizure.” “Welfare must be made available based upon need,” explained ACLU spokesman Bertram Petty. “It cannot be made contingent upon passage of a drug test. Drug addiction is not a crime. Therefore, the state has no ‘probable cause’ for seizing anyone’s urine and subjecting it to any test.” Petty dismissed the argument that applying for welfare benefits is a voluntary act and that no one is...

A Florida law requiring welfare recipients to pass a drug test before receiving benefits is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU contends that the law is an unconstitutional “search and seizure.” “Welfare must be made available based upon need,” explained ACLU spokesman Bertram Petty. “It cannot be made contingent upon passage of a drug test. Drug addiction is not a crime. Therefore, the state has no ‘probable cause’ for seizing anyone’s urine and subjecting it to any test.” Petty dismissed the argument that applying for welfare benefits is a voluntary act and that no one is...

MIAMI -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida plans to challenge the state's law requiring new welfare recipients to pass a drug test. An ACLU spokesman told The Associated Press Wednesday the lawsuit is being filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Orlando man, Luis Lebron. The spokesman says Florida's drug testing law is unconstitutional, saying it violates the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure protections. No further details of the lawsuit were immediately available. Gov. Rick Scott signed the drug testing bill into law in July. Under the law, welfare applicants must pay for the drug tests. If they pass,...